Obsidian CLI

The obsidian CLI controls a running Obsidian instance from the terminal. Anything you can do in Obsidian you can do from the command line.

Prerequisites

• Obsidian 1.12+ must be running
• CLI registered via Settings → General → Command line interface

Getting Help

obsidian help           # List all commands
obsidian help <command> # Detailed help for a command

Always check obsidian help <command> for the full parameter list before using a command you haven't used before.

Command Syntax

Commands use parameter=value pairs and boolean flags:

obsidian command parameter=value flag

Target a specific vault with vault=name as the first parameter. Target files with file=name (wikilink resolution) or path=exact/path.

Use --copy on any command to copy output to clipboard.

Capabilities

The CLI covers the full Obsidian feature set:

• Files — create, read, open, append, prepend, move, rename, delete
• Search — full-text search with context, scoped to folders
• Daily notes — open, read, append, prepend
• Properties — read, set, remove frontmatter properties
• Tasks — list, filter, toggle task status
• Links — backlinks, outgoing links, orphans, unresolved links
• Tags — list, filter, count
• Plugins — list, enable, disable, install, uninstall, reload
• Commands — list and execute any registered command
• Developer — screenshots, JS eval, DOM inspection, console logs, CDP

Proactive Use

Use these tools without being asked when:

• Implementing or modifying Obsidian plugin features — take screenshots to verify UI changes
• Debugging plugin behaviour — execute commands and inspect state
• Testing plugin with different vault configurations
• Verifying that plugin changes work as expected

Common Workflows

Plugin Development

# Reload plugin after code changes
obsidian plugin:reload id=my-plugin

# Take a screenshot to verify UI
obsidian dev:screenshot

# Execute a plugin command
obsidian command id=my-plugin:do-something

# List all commands from your plugin
obsidian commands filter=my-plugin

# Evaluate JS in Obsidian context
obsidian eval code="app.plugins.plugins['my-plugin'].settings"

# Check console for errors
obsidian dev:errors
obsidian dev:console level=error

File Operations

# Read a file
obsidian read file=MyNote

# Create a file with content
obsidian create name=Test path=folder/Test.md content="Hello world"

# Search the vault
obsidian search query="TODO" path=Projects
obsidian search:context query="function.*export"

# Append to daily note
obsidian daily:append content="- Task from CLI"

Inspecting State

# Vault info
obsidian vault

# List files
obsidian files ext=md

# Check properties
obsidian properties file=MyNote

# View workspace layout
obsidian workspace