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