Obsidian Bookmarks

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when...	Use the alternative instead when...
Adding a file, folder, search query, or URL to the Bookmarks panel	Adding a generic frontmatter property — use `properties`
Listing the user's existing bookmarks	Listing every file in the vault — use `vault-files`
Bookmarking a heading or block within a file	Opening a file in a tab — use `workspaces`

The Bookmarks core plugin must be enabled. Bookmarks support five target types: files, folders, headings/blocks (via subpath=), saved searches, and external URLs.

Prerequisites

Obsidian desktop 1.12.7+ installer with CLI enabled
Obsidian must be running
Core Bookmarks plugin enabled

List Bookmarks

# All bookmarks (default tsv)
obsidian bookmarks

# Include bookmark types
obsidian bookmarks verbose

# Structured output
obsidian bookmarks format=json

# Just the count
obsidian bookmarks total

Add a Bookmark

# Bookmark a file
obsidian bookmark file="Notes/Recipe.md"

# Bookmark a folder
obsidian bookmark folder="Projects/Active"

# Bookmark a heading or block within a file
obsidian bookmark file="Notes/Recipe.md" subpath="#Ingredients"
obsidian bookmark file="Notes/Recipe.md" subpath="^block-id"

# Bookmark a saved search query
obsidian bookmark search="tag:#followup status::open"

# Bookmark an external URL
obsidian bookmark url="https://obsidian.md/help/cli" title="Obsidian CLI docs"

# Custom title for any bookmark type
obsidian bookmark file="Notes/Recipe.md" title="Tonight's recipe"

Common Patterns

"Bookmark every file from a base view"

obsidian base:query file=Reading view="To read" format=paths \
  | while read -r path; do
      obsidian bookmark file="$path"
    done

"Promote a frequent search to a bookmark"

obsidian bookmark search="path:Daily tag:#followup" title="Outstanding follow-ups"

"Snapshot the current bookmark set"

obsidian bookmarks format=json > bookmarks-$(date +%F).json

Agentic Optimizations

Context	Command
List bookmarks (structured)	`obsidian bookmarks format=json`
List bookmarks with types	`obsidian bookmarks verbose`
Bookmark count	`obsidian bookmarks total`
Bookmark a file	`obsidian bookmark file=X`
Bookmark a heading	`obsidian bookmark file=X subpath="#H"`
Bookmark a block	`obsidian bookmark file=X subpath="^id"`
Bookmark a search	`obsidian bookmark search="QUERY"`
Bookmark a URL	`obsidian bookmark url=https://… title=…`

Related Skills

vault-files — Source files referenced by file/folder/subpath bookmarks
search-discovery — Construct the query strings used in search bookmarks
bases — base:query format=paths feeds nicely into bulk-bookmark loops