Obsidian Vault Management

Unified vault operations using two CLI tools. No Obsidian app required.

Tool	Role	Install
doc-qmd	Search (keyword, semantic, hybrid)	npm i -g @anthropic/qmd or check which qmd
doc-notesmd	CRUD, move, frontmatter, daily notes, backlinks	brew install yakitrak/yakitrak/notesmd-cli

Setup

First-Time Setup

# 1. Set default vault for notesmd-cli
notesmd-cli set-default "VaultName"

# 2. Index vault in qmd
qmd collection add ~/path/to/vault --name vault --mask "**/*.md"
qmd embed    # generate vector embeddings for semantic search

Verify

notesmd-cli print-default    # shows vault name + path
qmd status                   # shows indexed docs + embedding status

Keep Index Fresh

qmd update       # re-index changed files
qmd embed        # embed new/changed docs

Tool Selection

Task	Tool	Command
Search by keyword	qmd	qmd search "term"
Search by meaning	qmd	qmd vsearch "conceptual question"
Best search quality	qmd	qmd query "complex question"
Create note	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli create "name" --content "text"
Append to note	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli create "name" --content "text" --append
Read note	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli print "name"
Partial edit	notesmd-cli + Edit	Read with print, edit via vault path + Edit tool
Move/rename	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli move "old" "new" (updates all links)
Delete note	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli delete "name" (permanent, no trash)
Daily note	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli daily
Frontmatter	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli fm "name" --print / --edit / --delete
Backlinks	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli print "name" --mentions
List files	notesmd-cli	notesmd-cli list [path]
Recently modified	qmd	qmd ls vault (sorted by date, includes size)
Get document	qmd	qmd get vault/note.md
Batch retrieve	qmd	qmd multi-get "folder/*.md" --json

Search Workflows

Quick Lookup (keyword)

qmd search "authentication" -n 10
qmd search "authentication" --json      # structured output
qmd search "authentication" --md        # markdown for LLM context

Conceptual Search (semantic)

qmd vsearch "how do we handle user sessions"
qmd vsearch "error recovery patterns" --json -n 5

Deep Search (hybrid -- best quality)

qmd query "what decisions did we make about the API design?"
qmd query "deployment strategy" --full   # full document content

Search + Read Pattern

# Find relevant notes, then read full content
qmd search "auth" --json -n 3    # find candidates
notesmd-cli print "auth-design"  # read the one you need

Note CRUD

Create

notesmd-cli create "project/meeting-notes" --content "# Meeting\n\n## Agenda\n"
notesmd-cli create "inbox" --content "\n- New thought" --append
notesmd-cli create "scratch" --content "Replaced" --overwrite

--append and --overwrite are mutually exclusive. Without either, existing files are unchanged.

Content supports escape sequences: \n, \t, \r, \\, \", \'.

Read

notesmd-cli print "architecture"                # raw content to stdout
notesmd-cli print "architecture" --mentions      # with backlinks appended
qmd get vault/architecture.md                    # via qmd (by indexed path)

Move/Rename (with link updates)

notesmd-cli move "drafts/post" "published/post"

All [[wikilinks]] and [markdown](links) across the vault are updated automatically.

Partial Edit (surgical updates)

notesmd-cli has no partial edit — only --append and --overwrite. For surgical changes (replace a section, update a table row, fix a line), use this workflow:

# 1. Get vault path
VAULT=$(notesmd-cli print-default --path-only)

# 2. Read the note
notesmd-cli print "note-name"

# 3. Edit in place using the Edit tool with the full file path:
#    "$VAULT/path/to/note.md"

Rules:

• ALWAYS read with notesmd-cli print first — never guess content
• ALWAYS resolve the vault path via notesmd-cli print-default --path-only
• NEVER hardcode the vault path
• Use the Edit tool for targeted string replacement, not sed or awk
• For full rewrites, prefer notesmd-cli create --overwrite instead

Delete

notesmd-cli delete "scratch-note"    # permanent, no undo

Does NOT update links in other files referencing the deleted note.

Daily Notes

notesmd-cli daily              # create/open today's note
notesmd-cli daily --editor     # open in $EDITOR

Reads .obsidian/daily-notes.json for folder, date format (Moment.js), and template. Template content is applied only when creating a new note.

Append to Daily Note

DATE=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d')
notesmd-cli create "$DATE" --content "\n- $(date '+%H:%M') Task completed" --append

Templates

notesmd-cli does not have a --template flag. Templates are plain markdown files stored in meta/templates/ — create them once, reuse via cp.

Create Templates

notesmd-cli create "meta/templates/meeting" --content "# Meeting Notes\n\n**Date:** \n**Attendees:** \n\n## Agenda\n\n## Discussion\n\n## Action Items\n\n- [ ] "

notesmd-cli create "meta/templates/project" --content "# Project Name\n\n## Overview\n\n## Goals\n\n## Timeline\n\n## Status\n"

notesmd-cli create "meta/templates/decision" --content "# Decision: \n\n## Context\n\n## Options\n\n## Decision\n\n## Rationale\n\n## Consequences\n"

Create Note from Template

VAULT=$(notesmd-cli print-default --path-only)
cp "$VAULT/meta/templates/meeting.md" "$VAULT/meetings/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md"

Daily note templates are handled automatically — configure in .obsidian/daily-notes.json with a template field pointing to the template note path.

Frontmatter

notesmd-cli fm "note" --print
notesmd-cli fm "note" --edit --key "status" --value "done"
notesmd-cli fm "note" --edit --key "tags" --value "[cli,tools]"
notesmd-cli fm "note" --delete --key "draft"

Type inference: true/false -> boolean, [a,b] -> array, else string.

AI Agent Memory

Use the vault as persistent memory for Claude Code or other AI agents.

Store Knowledge

notesmd-cli create "memory/session-$(date +%Y%m%d)" \
  --content "# Session Notes\n\n## Learnings\n- Key insight here" \
  --overwrite

Retrieve Context

# Semantic search for relevant memories
qmd vsearch "how did we solve the caching issue" --md -n 5

# Hybrid search for best results
qmd query "authentication architecture decisions" --full -n 3

Append Learnings

notesmd-cli create "memory/patterns" \
  --content "\n\n## $(date '+%Y-%m-%d')\n- New pattern discovered" \
  --append

Build LLM Context

# Get structured results for injection into prompts
qmd search "relevant topic" --json -n 10
qmd multi-get "memory/*.md" --json --max-bytes 20480

For detailed search patterns and agent memory workflows, see:

• references/search.md -- qmd search modes, output formats, score interpretation
• references/agent-memory.md -- Memory organization, retrieval patterns, automation