Obsidian Search & Discovery

Full-text search, tag operations, and link graph traversal using the official Obsidian 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 search vault content or metadata

• User asks about tags, tag counts, or tag management

• User wants to explore note links or backlinks

• User needs to find orphaned or unlinked notes

• User asks about broken/unresolved wikilinks

Search

Full-Text Search

Basic search

obsidian search query="project roadmap"

JSON output for parsing

obsidian search query="architecture" format=json

Limit results

obsidian search query="meeting" limit=10

Open results in Obsidian

obsidian search:open query="review needed"

Property-Based Search

Search by property value

obsidian search query="[status:active]"

Search by tag

obsidian search query="[tag:publish]"

Combined

obsidian search query="[status:draft] [tag:blog]"

Tags

List Tags

All tags in vault

obsidian tags

Tags sorted by frequency

obsidian tags sort=count

Tags sorted by name

obsidian tags sort=name

Find Notes by Tag

Notes with a specific tag

obsidian tag tagname=pkm

Notes with nested tag

obsidian tag tagname=project/active

Rename Tags

Bulk rename across vault (updates all notes)

obsidian tags:rename old=meeting new=meetings

Links

Outgoing Links

Links from a note

obsidian links file="Architecture Overview"

Backlinks (Incoming Links)

Notes that link to this note

obsidian backlinks file="API Design"

Unresolved Links

Broken wikilinks (targets don't exist)

obsidian unresolved

Orphaned Notes

Notes with no incoming or outgoing links

obsidian orphans

Common Flags

Flag Description

format=json

JSON output for machine parsing

format=csv

CSV output

limit=N

Limit result count

sort=count|name|date

Sort order

--copy

Copy result to clipboard

Agentic Optimizations

Context Command

Search (structured) obsidian search query="term" format=json

Tag frequency analysis obsidian tags sort=count

Find tagged notes obsidian tag tagname=X

Broken link audit obsidian unresolved

Orphan detection obsidian orphans

Link graph for note obsidian links file="X" then obsidian backlinks file="X"

Related Skills

• vault-files — Read, create, and manage notes

• properties — Search and filter by frontmatter properties