Obsidian Official CLI Skill for OpenClaw

中文版本 / Chinese version

An OpenClaw-compatible AgentSkill for working with the official Obsidian 1.12+ CLI (obsidian).

This skill is built for retrieval-first agent workflows against a running Obsidian desktop app. It is especially useful for OpenClaw, Claude Code, and similar agent systems that want to query a live Obsidian vault transparently, without making vector import the default path.

Why this skill exists

There are older community tools such as obsidian-cli / NotesMD, and they are still useful in some setups. But Obsidian 1.12 introduced an official CLI exposed by the desktop app itself.

This skill focuses on that official path and encourages a workflow like:

search -> search:context -> read -> backlinks / links / properties

That makes retrieval:

• more transparent
• easier to verify
• closer to what a human sees inside Obsidian
• often cheaper in token cost than broad note dumping or first-pass vectorization

What the skill covers

The skill is centered around these commands:

• search
• search:context
• read
• outline
• backlinks
• links
• tags
• properties
• tasks
• unresolved

It defaults to a read-first posture and documents safer boundaries around write-capable commands such as append, delete, command, and eval.

Repository contents

• obsidian-official-cli/ — skill source
• dist/obsidian-official-cli.skill — packaged skill artifact
• README.zh-CN.md — Chinese README

Requirements

• Obsidian Desktop 1.12+
• Obsidian Command line interface enabled in:
  • Settings -> General -> Command line interface
• A working obsidian command

On macOS, using a login shell may help ensure PATH includes:

/Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS

Example usage patterns

Find topic-related notes

obsidian search query="PLC" limit=10 format=json
obsidian search:context query="PLC" limit=10 format=json

Read only the relevant note

obsidian read path="文档发布/2026-03-08_边缘AI推理安全与网关防护.md"

Expand into note graph structure

obsidian backlinks file="Central note" format=json counts
obsidian links file="Central note"

Inspect vault structure

obsidian tags counts format=json
obsidian properties counts format=json
obsidian unresolved total

Installation

Option 1: use the packaged artifact

Use the packaged file in:

dist/obsidian-official-cli.skill

Option 2: copy the source skill directory

Copy:

obsidian-official-cli/

into your OpenClaw skills directory.

Design choices

This skill intentionally does not replace older community obsidian-cli / NotesMD workflows. It is a parallel skill for environments where the official obsidian CLI is already available and preferred.

It also intentionally favors:

• small, explainable retrieval steps
• structured output (format=json) when possible
• narrow reads over whole-vault ingestion

Status

• validated
• packaged
• tested against a real Obsidian vault using the official CLI

License

MIT