Obsidian CLI

Use the

obsidian

CLI to interact with a running Obsidian instance. Requires Obsidian to be open.

Command reference

Run

obsidian help

to see all available commands. This is always up to date. Full docs: https://help.obsidian.md/cli

Syntax

Linux Sandbox Note: If you encounter a

Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)

error on newer Linux distributions (like Ubuntu 23.10+), run the command with

--no-sandbox

:

obsidian help --no-sandbox

Snap Installation Note: If the

obsidian

binary is a symlink to a Snap application, launching the CLI via

obsidian <command>

may incorrectly attempt to open a new GUI instance instead of connecting to the running app. Instead, you MUST invoke it using

snap run obsidian

:

snap run obsidian help
snap run obsidian plugin:reload id=<plugin-id>

Parameters take a value with

=

. Quote values with spaces:

obsidian create name="My Note" content="Hello world"

Flags are boolean switches with no value:

obsidian create name="My Note" silent overwrite

For multiline content use

\n

for newline and

\t

for tab.

File targeting

Many commands accept

file

or

path

to target a file. Without either, the active file is used.

• file=<name>

  — resolves like a wikilink (name only, no path or extension needed)

• path=<path>

  — exact path from vault root, e.g.

  folder/note.md

Vault targeting

Commands target the most recently focused vault by default. Use

vault=<name>

as the first parameter to target a specific vault:

obsidian vault="My Vault" search query="test"

Common patterns

obsidian read file="My Note"
obsidian create name="New Note" content="# Hello" template="Template" silent
obsidian append file="My Note" content="New line"
obsidian search query="search term" limit=10
obsidian daily:read
obsidian daily:append content="- [ ] New task"
obsidian property:set name="status" value="done" file="My Note"
obsidian tasks daily todo
obsidian tags sort=count counts
obsidian backlinks file="My Note"

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.

Plugin development

Develop/test cycle

After making code changes to a plugin or theme, follow this workflow:

1. Build and auto-reload — always chain

   obsidian plugin:reload

   after the build so Obsidian picks up changes immediately without any manual toggling:

   npm run build && obsidian plugin:reload id=<plugin-id>
   

   For plugins that have this baked into their

   package.json

   build script, a plain

   npm run build

   is enough:

   npm run build
   

2. Check for errors — if errors appear, fix and repeat from step 1:

   obsidian dev:errors
   

3. Verify visually with a screenshot or DOM inspection:

   obsidian dev:screenshot path=screenshot.png
   obsidian dev:dom selector=".workspace-leaf" text
   

4. Check console output for warnings or unexpected logs:

   obsidian dev:console level=error
   

Additional developer commands

Run JavaScript in the app context:

obsidian eval code="app.vault.getFiles().length"

Inspect CSS values:

obsidian dev:css selector=".workspace-leaf" prop=background-color

Toggle mobile emulation:

obsidian dev:mobile on

Run

obsidian help

to see additional developer commands including CDP and debugger controls.