obsidian

Obsidian vault = a normal folder on disk.

Use the Official CLI

• Command name is obsidian (not obsidian-cli).
• Requires Obsidian desktop 1.12+ with Settings -> General -> Command line interface enabled.
• CLI registration adds obsidian to PATH; restart the shell after enabling.
• CLI talks to the running Obsidian app; first command should launch the app if needed.

Vault Targeting

• If terminal cwd is inside a vault, that vault is used.
• Otherwise, the currently active vault is used.
• For deterministic scripts, pass vault="<vault name>" as the first argument.
• List known vaults: obsidian vaults verbose
• Show current vault path: obsidian vault info=path

File Targeting

• file=<name> resolves with wikilink-style matching by file name.
• path=<path> targets an exact path from the vault root (recommended for automation).

Official CLI Quick Reference

| Action | Command | |--------|---------| | Show help | obsidian help | | Help for one command | obsidian help create | | Open/create daily note | obsidian daily | | Get daily note path | obsidian daily:path | | Open note | obsidian open path="Folder/Note.md" | | Read note | obsidian read path="Folder/Note.md" | | Create note | obsidian create path="Folder/New note.md" content="..." | | Append to note | obsidian append path="Folder/New note.md" content="..." | | Prepend note | obsidian prepend path="Folder/New note.md" content="..." | | Move/rename note | obsidian move path="old/path.md" to="new/path.md" | | Delete note | obsidian delete path="Folder/Note.md" | | Search paths | obsidian search query="query" | | Search with matching lines | obsidian search:context query="query" | | Copy output to clipboard | obsidian read path="Folder/Note.md" --copy |

Key Points

• vault="<name>" must be the first argument when used.
• create, append, and prepend use content=<text>, with open/overwrite as flags.
• move updates links if Automatically update internal links is enabled in vault settings.
• Current CLI behavior is mostly silent/non-interactive; use open when you want the file focused in the app.
• For automation, prefer explicit vault=... and exact path=... values.

Safe Content Passing

When content includes backticks, $(), or a lot of quotes, pass it via a temp file and command substitution.

Temp file + heredoc (preferred):

tmp="$(mktemp)"
cat <<'EOF' > "$tmp"
... note content ...
EOF
obsidian vault="My Vault" create path="Folder/New note.md" content="$(cat "$tmp")"
rm "$tmp"

Inline heredoc (no temp file):

obsidian create path="Folder/New note.md" content="$(cat <<'EOF'
... note content ...
EOF
)"

Direct write to vault path (fallback):

vault_path="$(obsidian vault info=path)"
note="$vault_path/Folder/New note.md"
mkdir -p "${note%/*}"
cat <<'EOF' > "$note"
... note content ...
EOF

Verify with: obsidian read path="Folder/New note.md"