Obsidian Vault File Operations

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)

When to Use

Use this skill automatically when:

• User requests reading, creating, or editing Obsidian notes
• User mentions listing files or folders in a vault
• User wants to move or delete notes
• User needs daily note operations (open, read, append, prepend)
• User wants vault statistics or file counts

Path Conventions

• All paths are vault-relative — use folder/note.md, not absolute filesystem paths
• create omits .md extension (added automatically)
• move requires full target path including .md extension
• Quote values containing spaces: file="My Note Title"
• Newlines: \n, tabs: \t

Core File Operations

List Files

# All files in vault
obsidian files

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

# Total note count
obsidian files total

# JSON output for parsing
obsidian files format=json

List Folders

# All directories
obsidian folders

# Tree view
obsidian folders format=tree

Read a Note

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

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

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 template
obsidian create name="Meeting Notes" template="Templates/Meeting"

# Overwrite existing
obsidian create name="Draft" content="Fresh start" --overwrite

Append / Prepend

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

# Add to beginning of note
obsidian prepend file="Inbox" content="- [ ] New task\n"

Move a Note

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

# Rename in place
obsidian move file="Old Name" to="New Name.md"

Delete a Note

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

# Permanent deletion (irreversible)
obsidian delete file="Old Note" --permanent

Daily Notes

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

# Read today's content
obsidian daily:read

# Append to today's note
obsidian daily:append content="- Met with team about roadmap"

# Prepend to today's note
obsidian daily:prepend content="## Morning Goals\n- Review PRs"

# Open specific date
obsidian daily:open date=2026-02-15

Common Flags

Flag	Description
format=json	JSON output for machine parsing
format=csv	CSV output
format=tree	Tree view for folders
--silent	Suppress output
--overwrite	Replace existing note on create
--permanent	Irreversible delete (skip trash)
--copy	Copy result to clipboard
limit=N	Limit result count
sort=name|date	Sort order

Agentic Optimizations

Context	Command
List files (structured)	obsidian files format=json
File count	obsidian files total
Folder listing (structured)	obsidian folders format=json
Read note content	obsidian read file="Name"
Quick capture to daily	obsidian daily:append content="text"
Batch file listing	obsidian files folder=X format=json

Related Skills

• search-discovery — Find notes by content, tags, or links
• properties — Manage YAML frontmatter on notes
• tasks — Task management across the vault