Obsidian Properties Management

Read, set, and remove YAML frontmatter properties on Obsidian notes using the official CLI.

Prerequisites

• Obsidian desktop v1.12.4+ with CLI enabled

• Obsidian must be running

When to Use

Use this skill automatically when:

• User wants to read or inspect note metadata/frontmatter

• User needs to set, update, or add properties to notes

• User wants to remove properties from notes

• User asks about note status, tags, dates, or custom fields

• User needs to manage aliases on notes

Core Operations

Read Properties

Read all properties from a note

obsidian properties file="Project Spec"

JSON output for parsing

obsidian properties file="Project Spec" format=json

Set Properties

Set a text property

obsidian properties:set file="Note" status=active

Set a date property

obsidian properties:set file="Note" due=2026-03-15 type=date

Set multiple properties

obsidian properties:set file="Note" status=draft priority=high

Set tags property

obsidian properties:set file="Note" tags="blog,publish" type=tags

Remove Properties

Remove a single property

obsidian properties:remove file="Note" key=draft

Remove multiple properties

obsidian properties:remove file="Note" key=old_field

Property Types

Type Example Notes

Text status=active

Default type

Date due=2026-03-15 type=date

ISO 8601 format

Tags tags="a,b" type=tags

Comma-separated

Number priority=1

Numeric values

Boolean published=true

true/false

List aliases="Name1,Name2" type=tags

Comma-separated

Common Patterns

Status Workflow

Set draft status

obsidian properties:set file="Post" status=draft

Move to review

obsidian properties:set file="Post" status=review

Mark published

obsidian properties:set file="Post" status=published published=true

Alias Management

Add aliases for wikilink resolution

obsidian properties:set file="JavaScript" aliases="JS,js,ECMAScript" type=tags

Agentic Optimizations

Context Command

Read properties (structured) obsidian properties file="X" format=json

Set property obsidian properties:set file="X" key=value

Remove property obsidian properties:remove file="X" key=field

Typed property obsidian properties:set file="X" field=val type=date

Related Skills

• vault-files — Read and create notes

• search-discovery — Search by property values with [key:value] syntax