Obsidian Vault File Operations

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when...	Use the alternative instead when...
Reading, creating, appending, moving, renaming, or deleting notes through the running CLI	Doing offline bulk edits across many `.md` files — use `vault-frontmatter` or `vault-templates`
Opening or creating today's daily note	Curating MOC hub notes that organise existing content — use `vault-mocs`
Managing folder layout while Obsidian is running	Renaming a note and rewriting all links to it — use `vault-wikilinks`
Recovering a previous version after a bad edit	— use `file-history`
Querying notes structured by a Base view	— use `bases`

Comprehensive guidance for managing files, folders, and daily notes in Obsidian vaults using the official Obsidian CLI.

Prerequisites

Obsidian desktop 1.12.7+ installer
CLI enabled in Settings → General → Command line interface
Obsidian must be running (CLI communicates with the running instance)

Path & Flag Conventions

All paths are vault-relative — use folder/note.md, not absolute filesystem paths
file=<name> resolves like a wikilink (no extension needed); path=<full/path.md> is exact
Most commands default to the active file when neither file= nor path= is supplied
create omits .md from name= (added automatically); move requires .md in to=
Quote values containing spaces: file="My Note Title"
Newlines: \n, tabs: \t
Flags are bare words — overwrite, open, newtab, permanent, inline, total. The single exception is --copy (a universal output flag).
Multi-vault: prefix vault=<name> before the command — see vault-management

Core File Operations

List Files & Folders

# All files in vault
obsidian files

# Files in specific folder
obsidian files folder=Projects/Active

# Filter by extension
obsidian files ext=canvas

# Total note count
obsidian files total

# All folders, or just those under a parent
obsidian folders
obsidian folders folder=Projects

# Folder count
obsidian folders total

File Info

# Info on the active file (path/name/extension/size/created/modified)
obsidian file

# Info on a specific file
obsidian file file=Recipe
obsidian file path="Notes/Recipe.md"

# Folder info
obsidian folder path="Projects"
obsidian folder path="Projects" info=files
obsidian folder path="Projects" info=size

# Word and character counts
obsidian wordcount file=Recipe
obsidian wordcount file=Recipe words
obsidian wordcount file=Recipe characters

Read a Note

# Read by name (wikilink resolution)
obsidian read file="Note Name"

# Read by exact path
obsidian read path="Projects/spec.md"

# Read the active file (no args)
obsidian read

# Copy result to clipboard
obsidian read file="Note Name" --copy

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 a template (see also: templates skill)
obsidian create name="Meeting Notes" template="Meeting"

# Overwrite existing, then open it
obsidian create name="Draft" content="Fresh start" overwrite open

Append / Prepend

# Add to end of note
obsidian append file="Daily Log" content="\n## New Section\nContent here."

# Append without an extra newline
obsidian append file="Daily Log" content="more text" inline

# Add after frontmatter (prepend skips YAML)
obsidian prepend file="Inbox" content="- [ ] New task\n"

Open a Note

obsidian open file="Recipe"
obsidian open path="Notes/Recipe.md" newtab

Move / Rename

# Move to a folder (requires .md extension on target)
obsidian move file="Draft" to=Archive/Draft.md

# Move + rename in one shot
obsidian move file="Old Name" to="Archive/New Name.md"

# Rename in place — preserves extension automatically
obsidian rename file="Old Name" name="New Name"

move and rename automatically update internal links if Settings → Files & Links → Automatically update internal links is enabled.

Delete

# Move to system / Obsidian trash
obsidian delete file="Old Note"

# Permanent deletion (skips trash, irreversible)
obsidian delete file="Old Note" permanent

For undoing accidental deletes, see file-history (history:restore, sync:restore, sync:deleted).

Daily Notes

# Open today's daily note (creates if needed)
obsidian daily

# Get the expected daily note path (without creating)
obsidian daily:path

# Read today's content
obsidian daily:read

# Append / prepend
obsidian daily:append content="- Met with team about roadmap"
obsidian daily:prepend content="## Morning Goals\n- Review PRs"

# Open in a split or new window
obsidian daily paneType=split
obsidian daily paneType=window

The CLI does not expose a date= parameter on daily itself; for past dates use obsidian open path="Daily/2026-02-15.md" (with the actual folder/format from your Daily Notes settings).

Random & Unique Notes

# Open a random note
obsidian random

# Limit randomness to a folder
obsidian random folder=Inbox newtab

# Read a random note (returns content + path)
obsidian random:read folder=Inbox

# Unique note creator (Zettelkasten-style)
obsidian unique name="Idea" content="# Spark\n\n" open

# Open the new unique note in a split or window
obsidian unique name="Idea" paneType=split open

Web Viewer

# Open a URL in Obsidian's built-in web viewer
obsidian web url="https://obsidian.md/help/cli"

# In a new tab
obsidian web url="https://obsidian.md/help/cli" newtab

Useful for keeping reference docs side-by-side with notes without leaving Obsidian.

App Maintenance

# Obsidian app version
obsidian version

# Reload the active window (cheap; preserves vault)
obsidian reload

# Full app restart (heavier; for plugin reloads, prefer plugin:reload)
obsidian restart

Common Flags

Flag / Parameter	Description
`format=json`	JSON output for machine parsing
`format=csv`, `format=tsv`	Spreadsheet-friendly outputs
`--copy`	Universal: copy command output to clipboard
`overwrite`	Replace existing file on `create`
`permanent`	Irreversible delete (skip trash)
`inline`	Append/prepend without an added newline
`open`	Open file after creating
`newtab`	Open in a new tab instead of replacing the active leaf
`total`	Return only the count for list commands
`paneType=tab\|split\|window`	Choose where to open

Agentic Optimizations

Context	Command
List files (structured)	`obsidian files format=json`
Filter by extension	`obsidian files ext=md`
File count	`obsidian files total`
Folders under a parent	`obsidian folders folder=X`
Read note content	`obsidian read file="Name"`
Read & copy to clipboard	`obsidian read file="Name" --copy`
Quick capture to daily	`obsidian daily:append content="text"`
Append without newline	`obsidian append file=X content=Y inline`
Rename in place	`obsidian rename file=X name=Y`
Word count only	`obsidian wordcount file=X words`
Random note (read)	`obsidian random:read folder=X`

Related Skills

search-discovery — Find notes by content, tags, links, or grep-style context
properties — Manage YAML frontmatter on notes
tasks — Task management across the vault
bases — Query notes via Base views
templates — List, preview, and insert templates
file-history — Restore previous versions or recover deletes
vault-management — Multi-vault vault= prefix and vault info

vault-files