Obsidian Vault File Operations Skill

Obsidian Vault File Operations

When to Use This Skill

| Use this skill when... | Use the alternative instead when... | |---|---| | Reading, creating, appending, moving, renaming, or deleting notes through the running CLI | Doing offline bulk edits across many .md files — use vault-frontmatter or vault-templates | | Opening or creating today's daily note | Curating MOC hub notes that organise existing content — use vault-mocs | | Managing folder layout while Obsidian is running | Renaming a note and rewriting all links to it — use vault-wikilinks | | Recovering a previous version after a bad edit | — use file-history | | Querying notes structured by a Base view | — use bases |

Comprehensive guidance for managing files, folders, and daily notes in Obsidian vaults using the official Obsidian CLI.

Prerequisites

Obsidian desktop v1.12.4+ installed
CLI enabled in Settings → General → Command line interface
Obsidian must be running (CLI communicates with the running instance)

Path & Flag Conventions

All paths are vault-relative — use folder/note.md, not absolute filesystem paths
file=<name> resolves like a wikilink (no extension needed); path=<full/path.md> is exact
Most commands default to the active file when neither file= nor path= is supplied
create omits .md from name= (added automatically); move requires .md in to=
Quote values containing spaces: file="My Note Title"
Newlines: \n, tabs: \t
Flags are bare words — overwrite, open, newtab, permanent, inline, total. The single exception is --copy (a universal output flag).
Multi-vault: prefix vault=<name> before the command — see vault-management

Core File Operations

List Files & Folders

# All files in vault
obsidian files

# Files in specific folder
obsidian files folder=Projects/Active

# Filter by extension
obsidian files ext=canvas

# Total note count
obsidian files total

# All folders, or a tree view
obsidian folders
obsidian folders format=tree

File Info

# Info on the active file (path/name/extension/size/created/modified)
obsidian file

# Info on a specific file
obsidian file file=Recipe
obsidian file path="Notes/Recipe.md"

# Folder info
obsidian folder path="Projects"
obsidian folder path="Projects" info=files
obsidian folder path="Projects" info=size

# Word and character counts
obsidian wordcount file=Recipe
obsidian wordcount file=Recipe words
obsidian wordcount file=Recipe characters

Read a Note

# Read by name (wikilink resolution)
obsidian read file="Note Name"

# Read by exact path
obsidian read path="Projects/spec.md"

# Read the active file (no args)
obsidian read

# Copy result to clipboard
obsidian read file="Note Name" --copy

Create a Note

# Basic create (no .md needed)
obsidian create name="New Note"

# Create in folder with content
obsidian create name="Projects/Feature Spec" content="# Feature Spec\n\nDescription here."

# Create from a template (see also: templates skill)
obsidian create name="Meeting Notes" template="Meeting"

# Overwrite existing, then open it
obsidian create name="Draft" content="Fresh start" overwrite open

Append / Prepend

# Add to end of note
obsidian append file="Daily Log" content="\n## New Section\nContent here."

# Append without an extra newline
obsidian append file="Daily Log" content="more text" inline

# Add after frontmatter (prepend skips YAML)
obsidian prepend file="Inbox" content="- [ ] New task\n"

Open a Note

obsidian open file="Recipe"
obsidian open path="Notes/Recipe.md" newtab

Move / Rename

# Move to a folder (requires .md extension on target)
obsidian move file="Draft" to=Archive/Draft.md

# Move + rename in one shot
obsidian move file="Old Name" to="Archive/New Name.md"

# Rename in place — preserves extension automatically
obsidian rename file="Old Name" name="New Name"

move and rename automatically update internal links if Settings → Files & Links → Automatically update internal links is enabled.

Delete

# Move to system / Obsidian trash
obsidian delete file="Old Note"

# Permanent deletion (skips trash, irreversible)
obsidian delete file="Old Note" permanent

For undoing accidental deletes, see file-history (history:restore, sync:restore, sync:deleted).

Daily Notes

# Open today's daily note (creates if needed)
obsidian daily

# Get the expected daily note path (without creating)
obsidian daily:path

# Read today's content
obsidian daily:read

# Append / prepend
obsidian daily:append content="- Met with team about roadmap"
obsidian daily:prepend content="## Morning Goals\n- Review PRs"

# Open in a split or new window
obsidian daily paneType=split
obsidian daily paneType=window

The CLI does not expose a date= parameter on daily itself; for past dates use obsidian open path="Daily/2026-02-15.md" (with the actual folder/format from your Daily Notes settings).

Random & Unique Notes

# Open a random note
obsidian random

# Limit randomness to a folder
obsidian random folder=Inbox newtab

# Read a random note (returns content + path)
obsidian random:read folder=Inbox

# Unique note creator (Zettelkasten-style)
obsidian unique name="Idea" content="# Spark\n\n" open

Web Viewer

# Open a URL in Obsidian's built-in web viewer
obsidian web url="https://obsidian.md/help/cli"

# In a new tab
obsidian web url="https://obsidian.md/help/cli" newtab

Useful for keeping reference docs side-by-side with notes without leaving Obsidian.

App Maintenance

# Obsidian app version
obsidian version

# Reload the active window (cheap; preserves vault)
obsidian reload

# Full app restart (heavier; for plugin reloads, prefer plugin:reload)
obsidian restart

Common Flags

| Flag / Parameter | Description | |------------------|-------------| | format=json | JSON output for machine parsing | | format=csv, format=tsv | Spreadsheet-friendly outputs | | format=tree | Tree view (folders, outline) | | --copy | Universal: copy command output to clipboard | | overwrite | Replace existing file on create | | permanent | Irreversible delete (skip trash) | | inline | Append/prepend without an added newline | | open | Open file after creating | | newtab | Open in a new tab instead of replacing the active leaf | | total | Return only the count for list commands | | paneType=tab\|split\|window | Choose where to open |

Agentic Optimizations

| Context | Command | |---------|---------| | List files (structured) | obsidian files format=json | | Filter by extension | obsidian files ext=md | | File count | obsidian files total | | Folder tree | obsidian folders format=tree | | Read note content | obsidian read file="Name" | | Read & copy to clipboard | obsidian read file="Name" --copy | | Quick capture to daily | obsidian daily:append content="text" | | Append without newline | obsidian append file=X content=Y inline | | Rename in place | obsidian rename file=X name=Y | | Word count only | obsidian wordcount file=X words | | Random note (read) | obsidian random:read folder=X |

Related Skills

search-discovery — Find notes by content, tags, links, or grep-style context
properties — Manage YAML frontmatter on notes
tasks — Task management across the vault
bases — Query notes via Base views
templates — List, preview, and insert templates
file-history — Restore previous versions or recover deletes
vault-management — Multi-vault vault= prefix and vault info

Agent Skills: Obsidian Vault File Operations

Install this agent skill to your local

Skill Files