Obsidian CLI Workspace And Navigation

Obsidian CLI Workspace and Navigation

Use this skill for Obsidian workspace and navigation operations through official desktop obsidian CLI commands.

Routing contract

Use this skill when:

• the user asks about vault metadata or vault listing
• the user asks to inspect or change workspace layout state
• the user asks about tabs, recent files, or opening views/files for navigation
• the user asks for random/unique note navigation helpers
• the user asks to open a URL in Obsidian web viewer
• the user asks for word/character counts

Do not use this skill when:

• the request is primarily note CRUD, tasks, properties, templates, links, or history/diff
• the request is plugin/theme/snippet administration
• the request is Sync or Publish management
• the request is explicitly a named one-command workflow ID (route to obsidian-cli-workflows)
• the request is runtime diagnostics, DOM/CSS inspection, screenshot capture, eval, or CDP

Preconditions

Assume these must be true before relying on this skill:

• obsidian command is installed and registered
• Obsidian desktop app is available locally
• first command may launch Obsidian if it is not running
• in Codex Desktop on macOS, direct launches may crash; use the sanitized wrapper

Codex-safe launcher

In Codex Desktop on macOS, prefer this wrapper:

script -q /dev/null /usr/local/bin/zsh -ilc 'unset __CFBundleIdentifier LaunchInstanceID XPC_SERVICE_NAME CODEX_CI CODEX_SANDBOX CODEX_SHELL; export TERM=xterm-256color; obsidian ...'

Escalate the wrapped command only when required by sandbox boundaries.

Core operating policy

1. Use only documented official workspace/navigation CLI commands.
2. Prefer read-only inspection first for mixed flows: vault, vaults, workspace, workspaces, tabs, recents, wordcount.
3. Treat workspace layout mutations as high-impact operations (workspace:save, workspace:load, workspace:delete).
4. For tab:open and open, require explicit target intent when both file and view options are plausible.
5. vault:open is not currently treated as part of this skill's owned command set in this plugin release.
6. For web url=..., require explicit URL target and avoid silent URL construction.
7. Summarize side effects before mutating workspace state.
8. If a request is outside official workspace/navigation surface, say so and stop.

Risk levels

• low: vault, vaults, workspace, workspaces, tabs, recents, random, random:read, wordcount
• medium: open, tab:open, unique, web
• high: workspace:save, workspace:load, workspace:delete

Response contract

Always return:

• capability used
• risk level (low, medium, high)
• execution mode (direct or escalated)
• exact command(s) run or proposed
• side-effect summary (for workspace mutations)
• files/views/workspaces affected, if any
• blocking reason, if any

Command families

Vault:

• vault
• vaults

Workspace and tabs:

• workspace
• workspaces
• workspace:save
• workspace:load
• workspace:delete
• tabs
• tab:open
• recents

Navigation and utility:

• open
• random
• random:read
• unique
• web
• wordcount

References

• references/obsidian-cli-workspace-navigation-playbook.md
• references/limitations-and-boundaries.md
• references/validation.md
• references/source-links.md