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Obsidian CLI Setup

Obsidian 1.12+ ships a built-in CLI that lets AI agents read, create, search, and manage vault notes. This is the preferred channel for agent ↔ vault interaction.

Setup Steps

  1. Update Obsidian to 1.12+ (Help → Check for updates)
  2. Enable CLI: Settings → General → Advanced → Command line interface → ON
  3. Add to PATH:

Windows (PowerShell as admin): 

[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Path", $env:Path + ";C:\Program Files\Obsidian", "Machine")

macOS (add to ~/.zshrc): 

export PATH="/Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS:$PATH"

  1. Restart your terminal for PATH changes to take effect
  2. Verify: obsidian help should show available commands

WSL Users — Important

Do NOT install Obsidian CLI on Linux from WSL

The CLI must run on the same OS as your Obsidian app. From WSL, call the Windows CLI via cmd.exe: 

/mnt/c/Windows/System32/cmd.exe /c "obsidian read file=Note vault=my-vault"
Installing Obsidian on WSL will launch a separate Linux instance — it cannot control your Windows Obsidian.