Obsidian vault management with the official CLI
Work with Obsidian.
Requirements
- The obsidian command-line tool must be available.
- Obsidian 1.12.7 or newer must be installed.
- In Obsidian, Settings -> General -> Command line interface must be enabled.
- The obsidian command must be registered on PATH.
- The Obsidian app must be running, as the CLI connects to the running app.
How to use
Notes: *.md.
Canvases are *.canvas JSON.
Attachments live in the vault-configured folder.
Parameter values with spaces need quotes. Add --copy to copy output where useful.
file=<name> uses Obsidian-style file resolution; path=<vault-relative.md> is exact.
Prefer CLI move/delete/property commands for Obsidian-aware updates.
Prefer direct Markdown edits for bulk text changes after locating the vault path.
Do not rely on third-party obsidian-cli unless the user explicitly asks for it.
Use the official obsidian CLI for Obsidian vault work. Vault files are plain Markdown, so direct file edits are still fine when safer/faster.
Check the setup:
Verify the CLI responds before other work.
obsidian version
obsidian help
Notes: *.md.
Config lives at .obsidian/; avoid editing unless asked.
Multiple vaults are common; pass vault="<name>" when ambiguous.
Commands follow a single pattern:
obsidian <command> [name=value] [flag]
obsidian vault="Notes" search query="meeting notes" format=json
Typical operations include:
obsidian open file=Recipe
obsidian open path="Inbox/Idea.md" newtab
obsidian read
obsidian read file=Recipe
obsidian search query="TODO" matches
obsidian search query="status::active" format=json
obsidian search:open query="project notes"
obsidian create name="New Note"
obsidian create path="Inbox/Idea.md" content="# Idea"
obsidian append file=Note content="New line"
obsidian prepend file=Note content="After frontmatter"
obsidian move file=Note to=Archive/
obsidian move path="Inbox/Old.md" to="Projects/New.md"
obsidian delete file=Note
obsidian daily
obsidian daily:read
obsidian daily:append content="- [ ] Review inbox"
obsidian tasks all todo
obsidian task file=Note line=8 done
obsidian tags all counts
obsidian property:read file=Note name=status
obsidian property:set file=Note name=status value=done
obsidian backlinks file=Note
obsidian unresolved verbose counts
obsidian plugin:reload my-plugin
obsidian dev:errors
obsidian dev:screenshot file=shot.png
obsidian eval "app.vault.getFiles().length"
Source: openclaw/openclaw and its contributors. License: MIT.
Copyright (c) 2026 OpenClaw Foundation
Translation and editorial adaptation by ClawCases.
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