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The obsidian-cli skill teaches AI coding assistants to interact with a running Obsidian instance using the obsidian command-line tool. The CLI can read and write notes, search vault content, manage tasks, edit frontmatter properties, and support a full plugin and theme development cycle — including reloading plugins, capturing errors, taking screenshots, and inspecting the DOM. Load this skill when the user asks to interact with their Obsidian vault, manage notes from the terminal, or develop and debug Obsidian plugins and themes.
Obsidian must be open and running for all CLI commands to work. The CLI communicates with the active Obsidian instance; commands will fail if the application is not running.

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Syntax

Parameters take a value with =. Quote values that contain spaces: 
obsidian create name="My Note" content="Hello world"
Flags are boolean switches with no value: 
obsidian create name="My Note" silent overwrite
For multiline content, use \n for newline and \t for tab within the content string.

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File and Vault Targeting

Many commands accept file or path to target a specific note. Without either, the currently active file is used.
  • file=<name> — resolves like a wikilink (name only, no path or extension needed)
  • path=<path> — exact path from vault root, e.g. folder/note.md
Commands target the most recently focused vault by default. Use vault=<name> as the first parameter to target a specific vault: 
obsidian vault="My Vault" search query="test"

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Common Commands

The following patterns cover the most frequent vault operations: 
obsidian read file="My Note"
obsidian create name="New Note" content="# Hello" template="Template" silent
obsidian append file="My Note" content="New line"
obsidian search query="search term" limit=10
obsidian daily:read
obsidian daily:append content="- [ ] New task"
obsidian property:set name="status" value="done" file="My Note"
obsidian tasks daily todo
obsidian tags sort=count counts
obsidian backlinks file="My Note"
Use --copy on any command to copy the output directly to the clipboard instead of printing it to stdout.
Use the silent flag to prevent a note from opening in Obsidian when it is created or modified. Use total on list commands to get a count of results instead of the full list.
Run obsidian help to see all available commands — this is always up to date. Full documentation: https://help.obsidian.md/cli

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Plugin Development

After making code changes to a plugin or theme, follow this develop/test cycle to pick up changes and verify them in the running Obsidian instance.
1

Reload the plugin

Reload the plugin to pick up your latest code changes:
obsidian plugin:reload id=my-plugin
2

Check for errors

Inspect for runtime errors. If errors appear, fix them and repeat from step 1:
obsidian dev:errors
3

Verify visually

Take a screenshot or inspect the DOM to confirm the UI looks correct:
obsidian dev:screenshot path=screenshot.png
obsidian dev:dom selector=".workspace-leaf" text
4

Check console output

Review console output for warnings or unexpected logs:
obsidian dev:console level=error

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Additional Developer Commands

Run JavaScript directly in the Obsidian app context: 
obsidian eval code="app.vault.getFiles().length"
Inspect a CSS property on a DOM element: 
obsidian dev:css selector=".workspace-leaf" prop=background-color
Toggle mobile emulation on or off: 
obsidian dev:mobile on
Run obsidian help to see all available developer commands, including CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol) controls and debugger commands.

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