Obsidian CLI

Interact with a running Obsidian instance. Requires Obsidian open with CLI enabled (Settings > General > Command line interface).

Availability Check

Before any operation, verify CLI is available:

obsidian version 2>/dev/null

If this fails (non-zero exit), skip CLI operations and continue without enhanced context. Never block workflows because Obsidian is unavailable.

Syntax

Parameters take a value with =. Quote values with spaces:

obsidian search query="project notes" limit=10

Flags are boolean switches with no value:

obsidian create name="Note" silent

File targeting:

• file=<name> — resolves like a wikilink (name only)
• path=<path> — exact path from vault root

Vault targeting: Commands target the most recently focused vault. Use vault=<name> to target a specific vault.

Quick Start

Search notes by content

obsidian search query="meeting notes" limit=10

Find backlinks (notes linking TO a file)

obsidian backlinks file="Projects/Q2-Launch"

Find outgoing links (notes this file links TO)

obsidian links file="Projects/Q2-Launch"

Find notes by tag

obsidian tag name="project" limit=20

List all tags with counts

obsidian tags sort=count counts

Common Patterns

Use --copy on any command to copy output to clipboard. Use silent to prevent files from opening. Use total on list commands to get a count.

obsidian search query="leadership" limit=5 --copy
obsidian backlinks file="People/Marcus" total

References

For complete CLI command reference: references/commands.md

Full documentation: https://help.obsidian.md/cli