How It Works
Architecture
Section titled “Architecture”The agent teaches your AI assistant to use Obsidian’s official CLI, which communicates with the running app via IPC. It reads your config to know your vault name, path, and binary location, then constructs CLI commands on your behalf.
For content the CLI doesn’t handle well (callouts, complex edits), it falls back to direct file access using the vault path from your config.
Components
Section titled “Components”| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
skills/obsidian-cli/SKILL.md | Main skill — workflow patterns, configuration, quick reference |
skills/obsidian-cli/cli-reference.md | Complete CLI command documentation (100+ commands) |
skills/obsidian-cli/visual-formatting.md | Note formatting conventions (callouts, mermaid, structure) |
setup.sh | Interactive setup — auto-detects vault, writes config |
config.example.yaml | Configuration template (for manual setup) |
.claude-plugin/plugin.json | Claude Code plugin manifest |
Why IPC?
Section titled “Why IPC?”The Obsidian CLI communicates with the running Obsidian app via IPC (Inter-Process Communication). This means:
- Real-time: Changes appear instantly in Obsidian
- Full API access: Tasks, search, properties, backlinks — everything the app can do
- No file parsing: The app handles markdown parsing, link resolution, and indexing
- Requirement: Obsidian must be running for CLI commands to work
When IPC isn’t ideal (callouts with ! get escaped, complex multi-line edits), the agent reads/writes vault files directly using the vault_path from your config.