Obsidian CLI — Claude Code Skill

A skill for AI coding agents that enables full control of Obsidian vaults from the terminal using the official Obsidian CLI (v1.12+).

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What This Skill Does

Once installed, your AI agent will know how to interact with Obsidian vaults through the official CLI — reading, creating, and editing notes; managing daily notes; running full-text search; querying tasks, tags, links, and properties; managing plugins and sync; and running developer tools.

Covers 130+ commands across all major areas:

Area	Commands
Files	read, create, append, prepend, move, rename, delete, files, folders, file, random
Daily Notes	daily, daily:read, daily:append, daily:prepend, daily:path
Search	search, search:context with scoping, limits, JSON output
Properties	properties, property:read, property:set, property:remove, aliases
Tags	tags, tag with counts and filtering
Tasks	tasks, task — query, filter, toggle
Links	backlinks, links, unresolved, orphans, deadends
Bookmarks	bookmarks, bookmark
Templates	templates, template:read, template:insert
Plugins	plugins, plugin, plugin:enable/disable/install/uninstall, plugins:restrict
Sync	sync, sync:status, sync:history, sync:read, sync:restore, sync:deleted
Themes	themes, theme, theme:set, theme:install/uninstall
Snippets	snippets, snippets:enabled, snippet:enable/disable
Commands	commands, command, hotkeys, hotkey
Bases	bases, base:query, base:views, base:create
History	history, history:list, history:read, history:restore
Workspace	workspace, tabs, tab:open
Diff	diff
Developer	eval, dev:screenshot, dev:debug, dev:console, dev:errors, dev:css, dev:dom, devtools
Vault	vault, vaults, version, reload, restart, recents, outline, wordcount

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Invoking the Skill

The skill activates automatically when your request clearly involves Obsidian vault operations. For casual phrasing, you may need to invoke it explicitly:

Method	Example
Natural language (usually works)	"add this to my daily note: …", "search my vault for X"
Explicit prefix (always works)	$obsidian-cli append to today's daily note: "…"
Strict mode (always active)	Enable in Claude Code settings so the skill is always loaded

If Claude tries to answer a vault request without executing any commands, just say use obsidian-cli and it will retry with the skill active.

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Prerequisites

Obsidian v1.12 is available to all users — no Early Access build or Catalyst license required.

Requirement	Details
Obsidian Desktop	v1.12.0+
CLI enabled	Settings → Command line interface → Toggle ON
Obsidian running	The desktop app must be running — the CLI communicates over IPC

Platform notes

• macOS / Linux — the obsidian binary is added to PATH automatically when you enable CLI in settings.
• Windows — requires an Obsidian.com redirector file placed alongside Obsidian.exe. Must run from a normal-privilege terminal — admin terminals produce silent failures.
• Headless Linux — use the .deb package (not snap). Run under xvfb and prefix commands with DISPLAY=:5. Set PrivateTmp=false if running as a systemd service.

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Installation

Claude Code — Plugin (native)

Option A — Marketplace install (recommended):

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/pablo-mano/Obsidian-CLI-skill
/plugin install obsidian-cli

Done — see Invoking the Skill above for how to activate it.

Option B — Direct plugin load:

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/pablo-mano/Obsidian-CLI-skill
   

2. Load the plugin with the --plugin-dir flag:

   claude --plugin-dir ./Obsidian-CLI-skill
   

Option C — Persistent via settings.json:

Add to your project's .claude/settings.json:

{
  "plugins": {
    "obsidian-cli": {
      "source": { "source": "github", "repo": "pablo-mano/Obsidian-CLI-skill" }
    }
  }
}

The .claude-plugin/marketplace.json manifest makes this repository compatible with Claude Code's marketplace system.

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Cursor

Cursor has a native skills system (launched Feb 2026) that is directly compatible with the SKILL.md format — no rules file needed.

In a terminal:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/pablo-mano/Obsidian-CLI-skill /tmp/Obsidian-CLI-skill
mkdir -p ~/.cursor/skills
cp -r /tmp/Obsidian-CLI-skill/skills/obsidian-cli ~/.cursor/skills/obsidian-cli
rm -rf /tmp/Obsidian-CLI-skill

Cursor picks it up automatically — no restart needed.

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Cortex Code

Option A — Remote install (recommended)

In a Cortex Code session, run:

/skill add https://github.com/pablo-mano/Obsidian-CLI-skill.git

Cortex Code clones the repo and caches the skill. Use /skill sync obsidian-cli to pull updates later.

Option B — Project-local install

mkdir -p .cortex/skills/obsidian-cli
curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pablo-mano/Obsidian-CLI-skill/main/skills/obsidian-cli/SKILL.md \
  -o .cortex/skills/obsidian-cli/SKILL.md

Or clone the repo and copy:

git clone https://github.com/pablo-mano/Obsidian-CLI-skill.git /tmp/obsidian-cli-skill
cp -r /tmp/obsidian-cli-skill/skills/obsidian-cli .cortex/skills/

Option C — User-level install

mkdir -p ~/.snowflake/cortex/skills/obsidian-cli
cp skills/obsidian-cli/SKILL.md ~/.snowflake/cortex/skills/obsidian-cli/

Verify

/skill list

You should see obsidian-cli in the output.

Invoke

Prefix requests with $obsidian-cli or just describe what you want — Cortex Code activates the skill automatically when the context matches:

$obsidian-cli append to today's daily note: "Reviewed Snowflake PR #42"

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GitHub Copilot (VS Code)

Copilot supports custom instructions via repository files:

Option A — Repository-wide (recommended):

1. Create .github/copilot-instructions.md in your repo.
2. Paste the body of SKILL.md into the file.

Option B — Path-scoped:

1. Create .github/instructions/obsidian-cli.instructions.md
2. Add frontmatter applyTo: "**/*" then paste the SKILL.md body.

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Windsurf

Windsurf uses a Rules system (.windsurf/rules/). Rules have a 12,000 character limit per file, so split the skill across two files:

1. Create .windsurf/rules/obsidian-cli.md — paste the body of SKILL.md (everything after the --- frontmatter).
2. Create .windsurf/rules/obsidian-cli-reference.md — paste the contents of skills/obsidian-cli/references/command-reference.md.

Set the activation mode to Always On or Model Decision in each file's frontmatter to control when the rules apply.

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Nanoclaw

Nanoclaw loads skills from .claude/skills/ using the same SKILL.md format — directly compatible.

1. Clone or download this repo
2. Copy the skill folder into your Nanoclaw project:

   cp -r Obsidian-CLI-skill /path/to/nanoclaw/.claude/skills/obsidian-cli
   

3. The skill is available as a slash command (/obsidian-cli) or auto-triggers when you ask the agent to interact with Obsidian.

This is a knowledge skill — it adds Obsidian CLI awareness to the agent without modifying Nanoclaw's codebase.

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Openclaw

Openclaw loads skills from the skills/ directory at the project root using the SKILL.md format — directly compatible.

1. Clone or download this repo
2. Copy the skill folder into Openclaw's skills directory:

   cp -r Obsidian-CLI-skill /path/to/openclaw/skills/obsidian-cli
   

3. Restart the Openclaw agent — skills are discovered automatically.

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Any Other LLM Agent or Assistant

SKILL.md is a plain Markdown document. For any agent that supports custom system prompts or instructions:

1. Open the agent's system prompt / custom instructions settings.
2. Paste the contents of SKILL.md (with or without the YAML frontmatter — most agents accept either).
3. Optionally include skills/obsidian-cli/references/command-reference.md for the complete command reference.

This works with any chat interface or coding agent that has a system prompt or custom instructions field.

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Quick Examples

Append to today's daily note

obsidian daily:append content="- [ ] Review pull requests"

Search your vault and pipe to jq

obsidian search query="meeting notes" format=json | jq '.[].path'

Vault health check

obsidian files total          # Total file count
obsidian tags counts sort=count  # Most-used tags
obsidian tasks                # All open tasks
obsidian orphans              # Notes with no links
obsidian unresolved           # Broken wikilinks

Create a note from a template with metadata

obsidian create path="projects/new-feature" template="project-template"
obsidian property:set path="projects/new-feature.md" name="status" value="planning"
obsidian property:set path="projects/new-feature.md" name="created" value="$(date -I)"
obsidian daily:append content="- Started [[projects/new-feature|New Feature]]"

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Full Command Reference

See skills/obsidian-cli/references/command-reference.md for the complete reference covering all commands, parameters, flags, output formatting, multi-vault usage, and headless Linux setup.

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Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause	Fix
Empty output / hangs	Obsidian not running, or admin terminal (Windows)	Start Obsidian; use a normal-privilege terminal
command not found	CLI not registered in PATH	Re-enable CLI in Settings; restart terminal
Unicode errors	Bug fixed in v1.12.2+	Update Obsidian
Wrong vault targeted	Multi-vault ambiguity	Pass vault name as the first argument: obsidian "My Vault" ...
IPC socket not found (Linux)	PrivateTmp=true in systemd unit	Set PrivateTmp=false
Snap confinement errors	Snap restricts IPC	Use the .deb package instead
Multi-vault "Name" command fails	Vault name matching issue	Omit vault name; switch vault manually in Obsidian UI
property:set list value is a string	CLI stores value as-is	Edit frontmatter directly or use eval to call Obsidian API
Colon+params exit 127 (missing .com)	Outdated installer — Obsidian.com absent	Reinstall from obsidian.md/download
Colon+params exit 127 (Git Bash / MSYS2)	Bash resolves obsidian to .exe not .com	Create ~/bin/obsidian wrapper: #!/bin/bash + /c/path/to/Obsidian.com "$@", add export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH" to ~/.bashrc

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License

This skill is provided as-is for use with the Obsidian CLI. Obsidian v1.12+ is free for all users.