Shimmering Obsidian is an Alfred workflow that brings dozens of keyboard-driven features to your Obsidian vault. Instead of clicking through Obsidian’s UI, you can open notes, create new ones, switch vaults, search tags, browse plugins, and much more — all from Alfred’s universal search bar, without ever lifting your hands from the keyboard.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/chrisgrieser/shimmering-obsidian/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Why Shimmering Obsidian?
Obsidian’s built-in Quick Switcher is powerful, but it only works while Obsidian is already open. Shimmering Obsidian extends that idea far beyond a single shortcut: it lets you search and open notes even when Obsidian is not running, capture quick thoughts to a scratchpad, switch between workspaces, browse community plugins and themes, and trigger OCR screenshots — all from a single, consistent Alfred interface. If you live by the keyboard and keep Obsidian at the center of your knowledge workflow, this workflow closes the gap between “everywhere” and “in Obsidian.”Key Features
Search
Alfred-based quick switcher with support for notes, aliases, folders,
headings, tags, bookmarks, recent files, attachments, and external links.
Includes smart query filters and QuickLook previews.
Note Management
Create new notes with optional templates, append text to a persistent
scratchpad note, and capture OCR or image screenshots directly into your
vault.
Vault Utilities
Switch between Obsidian workspaces and vaults, back up your vault to a zip
archive, access CSS snippets, open hidden folders, and refresh workflow
metadata — all without touching the mouse.
Plugins & Settings
Search community plugins and themes, open their GitHub repositories or the
in-app browser, and jump directly to any Obsidian settings tab — including
individual plugin settings.
Reference Cheat Sheet
A quick-reference list of every keyword trigger available in Shimmering
Obsidian, from
o (open notes) to oupdate (refresh metadata and plugins).Installation Guide
Step-by-step setup: install the required Obsidian plugins, download the
workflow, and configure your vault path to get started in minutes.
How It Works
Shimmering Obsidian does not access your vault files in real time. Instead, it reads the JSON metadata files produced by the Metadata Extractor plugin on a regular schedule. This means all search operations — including note names, aliases, tags, and headings — are driven by a cached snapshot of your vault that is refreshed at a configurable interval (30 minutes by default). The practical consequence is that notes created, renamed, or re-tagged very recently may not appear in search results until the next metadata refresh cycle. You can always trigger an immediate refresh using theoupdate keyword. The Advanced URI plugin is used alongside the metadata to actually open notes, navigate to headings, append text, and perform other write operations inside Obsidian.
Prerequisites
Before installing Shimmering Obsidian, make sure you have the following:- macOS — Alfred is a macOS-only application.
- Alfred 5 with an active Powerpack license. The Powerpack is required to install and run third-party Alfred workflows.
- Obsidian installed and at least one vault configured.
Required Obsidian Plugins
Shimmering Obsidian depends on two community plugins that must be installed, enabled, and configured inside Obsidian before the workflow can function:- Advanced URI — exposes a URI scheme that the workflow uses to open notes, navigate to headings, append content, and perform other operations inside Obsidian programmatically.
- Metadata Extractor — periodically writes JSON files containing your vault’s note names, aliases, tags, headings, and other metadata. These JSON files are the data source for every search feature in the workflow.