Obsidian Vault

Read, search, and create Markdown notes inside an Obsidian vault with simple filesystem commands.

Location: Set via

OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH

environment variable (e.g. in

~/.hermes/.env

).

If unset, defaults to

~/Documents/Obsidian Vault

.

Note: Vault paths may contain spaces - always quote them.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• read or search notes in an Obsidian vault
• create or append Markdown notes
• connect notes with wikilinks
• manage a local note vault without a Notion-style database workflow

Use another skill when:

• the task needs structured database-style properties and page relations → prefer Notion skills
• the task is specifically about a Karpathy-style persistent research wiki → consider

  llm-wiki

Usage

Recommended flow:

resolve vault path
-> search existing note or folder
-> read current note if it exists
-> create or append
-> add wikilinks to keep notes connected

Quick path check:

VAULT="${OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH:-$HOME/Documents/Obsidian Vault}"
test -d "$VAULT" && echo "$VAULT" || echo "Vault not found"

Read a note

VAULT="${OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH:-$HOME/Documents/Obsidian Vault}"
cat "$VAULT/Note Name.md"

List notes

VAULT="${OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH:-$HOME/Documents/Obsidian Vault}"

# All notes
find "$VAULT" -name "*.md" -type f

# In a specific folder
ls "$VAULT/Subfolder/"

Search

VAULT="${OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH:-$HOME/Documents/Obsidian Vault}"

# By filename
find "$VAULT" -name "*.md" -iname "*keyword*"

# By content
grep -rli "keyword" "$VAULT" --include="*.md"

Create a note

VAULT="${OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH:-$HOME/Documents/Obsidian Vault}"
cat > "$VAULT/New Note.md" << 'ENDNOTE'
# Title

Content here.
ENDNOTE

Append to a note

VAULT="${OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH:-$HOME/Documents/Obsidian Vault}"
echo "
New content here." >> "$VAULT/Existing Note.md"

Wikilinks

Obsidian links notes with

[[Note Name]]

syntax. When creating notes, use these to link related content.

Common Pitfalls

• forgetting to quote vault paths with spaces
• creating duplicate notes instead of appending to the canonical one
• writing plain filenames instead of Obsidian wikilinks
• assuming Obsidian metadata behaves like a database schema