obsidian-clis

Obsidian CLIs

CLIs here means two terminal interfaces: the Obsidian app CLI (obsidian, primary) and notesmd-cli (filesystem fallback when obsidian is not available). There is no separate invocation mode—pick the binary that exists in the environment.

Which binary to use

1. If obsidian is on PATH, use it for all workflows below (richer surface: links, Bases, tasks, plugin dev).
2. If obsidian is missing but notesmd-cli is on PATH, follow notesmd-fallback.md for headless vault operations.
3. If neither is available, say so and fall back to direct file edits, MCP, or other vault tools the user provides.

CLI availability

Before relying on either tool, confirm install with command -v obsidian and command -v notesmd-cli (or which) when the environment is unknown. Do not assume either binary is present.

If sandboxed obsidian cannot find the running app, retry outside the sandbox before falling back.

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Obsidian app CLI

Run obsidian <command> to control a running Obsidian instance from the terminal. The app must be running for most commands; the first command will launch Obsidian if not open.

Run obsidian help or obsidian help <command> for the canonical, always-up-to-date command reference. This skill documents common patterns and non-obvious behaviors.

Targeting vaults and files

• Vault: vault=<name> as first parameter. Default: cwd if it's a vault folder, else the active vault.
• File: file=<name> resolves like a wikilink (name only, no path or extension needed). path=<path> for exact path from vault root.
• TUI: Run obsidian with no args for interactive mode; omit the obsidian prefix inside.

Parameters and flags

• Parameters: param=value. Quote values with spaces: content="Hello world".
• Flags: Boolean, no value: silent, overwrite, newtab.
• Multiline content: Use \n for newlines, \t for tabs in content=.

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