Obsidian Vault

Obsidian CLI

The obsidian CLI provides vault-aware operations and requires Obsidian to be running. Prefer the CLI over direct file manipulation for read, create, append, delete, move, and rename operations, as it respects Obsidian's index and link graph.

Syntax notes:

• Parameters use = notation: obsidian read file="My Note"
• file=<name> resolves by wikilink-style name (fuzzy); path=<path> is exact vault path
• Quote values containing spaces
• Use \n for newlines and \t for tabs in content values
• Target a specific vault with vault=Notes as first parameter (usually not needed)

Key commands

Reading and writing:

obsidian read file="Note Name"                          # Read note by name
obsidian create name="Note Name" template="New note template" content="..."  # Create a note
obsidian append file="Note Name" content="New line"     # Append content
obsidian prepend file="Note Name" content="New line"    # Prepend content

File management:

obsidian delete file="Note Name"                        # Move to trash
obsidian delete file="Note Name" permanent              # Delete permanently
obsidian move file="Note Name" to="Folder/"             # Move to folder
obsidian rename file="Note Name" name="New Name"        # Rename note
obsidian files folder="@Inbox"                          # List files in folder

Search:

obsidian search query="search term"                     # Full-text search
obsidian search query="term" path="Slipbox" limit=10    # Scoped search
obsidian search:context query="term"                    # Search with line context

Links and graph:

obsidian backlinks file="Note Name"                     # List backlinks
obsidian links file="Note Name"                         # List outgoing links
obsidian orphans                                        # Files with no incoming links
obsidian deadends                                       # Files with no outgoing links
obsidian unresolved                                     # Unresolved wikilinks

Properties/frontmatter:

obsidian property:set name="status" value="done" file="Note Name"
obsidian property:read name="status" file="Note Name"
obsidian property:remove name="status" file="Note Name"
obsidian properties file="Note Name"                    # List all properties

Tasks:

obsidian tasks todo                                     # List incomplete tasks
obsidian tasks done                                     # List completed tasks
obsidian task file="Note Name" line=5 toggle            # Toggle task at line

Tags:

obsidian tags counts sort=count                         # Tags with counts
obsidian tags file="Note Name"                          # Tags in a file

Writing conventions

Voice and perspective

CRITICAL: All notes must be written from Chase's first-person perspective.

When creating or editing notes:

• Write as if Chase is writing for himself
• Use first person ("I", "my", "me")
• Adopt Chase's voice and thinking style
• Notes are personal knowledge, not documentation written about Chase
• Example: "I think this approach..." NOT "Chase thinks this approach..."
• Example: "This reminds me of..." NOT "This might remind the user of..."

These are personal notes in Chase's vault, not third-party documentation.

File naming

• Use sentence case: Capitalize only the first word (e.g., Meeting notes.md, Claude code productivity skill.md)
• Descriptive names with spaces
• Avoid special characters: # | ^ : %% [[ ]]
• Filename IS the title (don't repeat in file)

Formatting

• No blank lines after headings: Content should start immediately on the next line after a heading

  ## Heading
  Content starts here immediately.
  
  - Or lists start immediately
  - Like this
  

Markdown syntax

Frontmatter

Optional metadata at the top of notes, enclosed in ---:

---