name: obsidian-cli
description: Obsidian vault operations using obsidian-cli. Use for moving notes (updates wikilinks), frontmatter editing, or opening notes in Obsidian app.
user_invocable: false
github_url: https://github.com/Yakitrak/obsidian-cli

Obsidian CLI

CLI for Obsidian vault operations. Primary use case: moving/renaming notes with automatic wikilink updates.

When to Use

• Move/rename notes — Updates all wikilinks across vault (direct file ops don't)
• Open note in Obsidian app — When user wants to view in native app
• Frontmatter operations — View or modify YAML frontmatter
• Fuzzy search — When you don't know exact note name

For simple read/write operations, prefer direct file access (faster, no CLI overhead).

Prerequisites

• obsidian-cli installed (/opt/homebrew/bin/obsidian-cli)
• Default vault configured (Terry's vault: /Users/terry/notes)

Commands

Check Default Vault

obsidian-cli print-default

Set Default Vault

# Takes vault name as arg (path auto-discovered from Obsidian config)
obsidian-cli set-default notes

Open Note in Obsidian

obsidian-cli open "Note Name"
obsidian-cli open "folder/Note Name"

Create Note

obsidian-cli create "New Note" --content "Initial content"
obsidian-cli create "folder/New Note" --content "Content here"

Print Note Contents

obsidian-cli print "Note Name"

Move/Rename Note (KEY FEATURE)

# Rename note (updates all wikilinks!)
obsidian-cli move "Old Name" "New Name"

# Move to different folder
obsidian-cli move "Note Name" "archive/Note Name"

# Move and rename
obsidian-cli move "drafts/Old Name" "published/New Name"

Delete Note

obsidian-cli delete "Note Name"

Fuzzy Search

obsidian-cli search "partial name"

Search Content

obsidian-cli search-content "search term"

Daily Note

obsidian-cli daily  # Creates/opens today's daily note

Frontmatter Operations

# View frontmatter
obsidian-cli frontmatter "Note Name"

# Set frontmatter field
obsidian-cli frontmatter "Note Name" --set "status=active"

# Remove frontmatter field
obsidian-cli frontmatter "Note Name" --remove "draft"

Key Use Case: Renaming with Link Updates

When renaming a note that's linked from other notes:

Wrong way (breaks links):

mv "~/notes/Old Name.md" "~/notes/New Name.md"

Right way (updates links):

obsidian-cli move "Old Name" "New Name"

This scans the vault and updates all [[Old Name]] references to [[New Name]].

When NOT to Use

• Simple file reads → Use Read tool directly
• Simple file writes → Use Write tool directly
• Searching file contents → Use Grep tool
• Listing files → Use ls or Glob

The CLI adds overhead. Only use when you need its special capabilities (move with link updates, frontmatter, open in app).

Integration

• Complements vault-pathfinding skill for linking conventions
• Works alongside direct file operations—choose the right tool for the job