obsidian-cli

Obsidian CLI

Use the obsidian CLI to interact with a running Obsidian instance. Requires Obsidian to be open.

[!IMPORTANT] macOS — open Obsidian once before using the CLI. On macOS the obsidian command launches the Electron app if no Obsidian instance is running, producing a visible window flash on the first call. Once Obsidian is open, subsequent CLI calls forward args to the running instance silently — no further flicker. For interactive workflows (slash commands), ensure Obsidian is open at the start of the session. For non-interactive contexts where you can't guarantee Obsidian is open (background hooks, automation, CI), prefer filesystem reads via Read / Grep / Glob.

Command reference

Run obsidian help to see all available commands. This is always up to date. Full docs: https://help.obsidian.md/cli

Syntax

Parameters take a value with =. Quote values with 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.

File targeting

Many commands accept file or path to target a file. Without either, the 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

Vault targeting

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"

Common patterns

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"