obsidian-cli

Obsidian CLI

The obsidian CLI is available when Obsidian 1.12.7+ is running and the CLI is on PATH. Check availability with Bash → obsidian --version.

All commands use the pattern: obsidian <command> [params] [flags]

Reading

Read note content:

obsidian read --path "folder/note.md"

Open a note in Obsidian:

obsidian open --path "folder/note.md"

Get backlinks (JSON):

obsidian backlinks --path "folder/note.md" --format json [--counts]

Get note properties (YAML frontmatter, JSON output):

obsidian properties --path "folder/note.md" --format json [--counts]

Properties

Read a single property:

obsidian property:read --name "status" --path "folder/note.md"

Set a property:

obsidian property:set --name "status" --value "done" --type "text" --path "folder/note.md"

Remove a property:

obsidian property:remove --name "status" --path "folder/note.md"

Bases & Dataview

Query a Base file:

obsidian base:query --path "bases/literature.base" --view "Main" --format json

Tasks

List tasks in a note:

obsidian tasks --path "folder/note.md" --format json [--todo] [--done]

App Control

Take a screenshot:

obsidian screenshot --output "shot.png"

Reload a plugin:

obsidian plugin:reload --id "obsidian-git"

Move & Rename (with wikilink updates)

Move a note:

obsidian move --path "old/note.md" --to "new/note.md"

Rename a note:

obsidian rename --path "folder/note.md" --name "new-name.md"

Use these instead of filesystem mv/rename when Obsidian is running — they update all internal wikilinks automatically.

Parsing CLI Output

All --format json commands return a JSON array of objects. Parse with Python:

import json, subprocess
result = subprocess.run(["obsidian", "backlinks", "--path", "note.md", "--format", "json"], capture_output=True, text=True)
data = json.loads(result.stdout)

Error Handling

If stdout contains "Vault not found." or similar error text, treat as failure even if exit code is 0. Check returnCode != 0 and scan stdout for known error patterns.

Do not use shell=True on Windows — pass the executable path directly.

Eval Scenarios

• Trigger: "Open this note in Obsidian." Expected: check CLI availability, then run obsidian open --path .... Must not modify files.
• Trigger: "Rename a note and keep links working." Expected: use obsidian rename or obsidian move, then verify the command output. Must not use raw filesystem rename while Obsidian is running.
• Trigger: "List unfinished tasks in this note." Expected: use obsidian tasks --format json --todo and parse JSON. Must treat error text in stdout as failure even if exit code is zero.

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中文说明

当 Obsidian 桌面运行时，所有文件移动、重命名、属性读写、任务查询等操作优先通过 obsidian CLI 完成，以确保内部双链自动更新。使用 Bash 工具执行上述命令，解析 --format json 输出。