Obsidian Explorer

Overview

This skill enables users to efficiently search, read, organize, and save notes stored in an Obsidian vault. It runs on Windows using PowerShell scripts (.ps1) invoked from a bash shell via powershell.exe -File. Full-text search (-SearchType fulltext) uses ripgrep (rg.exe) located under the bin directory within this skill.

Prerequisites

Vault Path Configuration

Set your Obsidian vault path in config.json (save with UTF-8 BOM). A config file is used instead of environment variables because Japanese characters in paths get garbled when passed from bash. Windows environment variables such as %USERPROFILE% can also be used.

{
  "vaultPath": "%USERPROFILE%\\Documents\\Obsidian"
}

The environment variable OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH is used as a fallback.

Script Location

All scripts are located under ~/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/.

• script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1 - Search script
• script/Save-ObsidianNote.ps1 - Note saving script
• script/List-ObsidianNotes.ps1 - Note listing script
• script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1 - Note reading (content retrieval) script

ripgrep Setup

ripgrep is required for full-text search. Place rg.exe in one of the following locations:

• Recommended: ~/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/bin/rg.exe
• Alternatively, any subfolder under bin (e.g., bin/ripgrep-15.1.0-aarch64-pc-windows-msvc/rg.exe)

Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1 recursively searches under the bin directory from the project root and uses the first rg.exe found. If none is found, the script exits with an error.

Search (Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1)

Search notes in the Obsidian vault by keyword.

Parameters

Usage Examples

# Full-text search
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "GRANDIT.*timeout" -SearchType fulltext

# Filename search
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "GRANDIT" -SearchType filename

# Heading search
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "performance" -SearchType heading

# Tag search
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "todo" -SearchType tag

# Search within a specific folder, showing 3 surrounding lines
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "error" -Folder "Projects" -Context 3

# Display up to 50 results
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "TypeScript" -MaxResults 50

Save Note (Save-ObsidianNote.ps1)

Create a new note and save it to the vault. A date prefix (yyyy-MM-dd) is automatically added to the filename.

Parameters

Usage Examples

# Save to the vault root
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Save-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Title "Meeting Notes" -Content "## Agenda\n\n- Item 1\n- Item 2"

# Save to a specific folder
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Save-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Title "Research Results" -Content "Content" -Folder "Projects/Research"

List Notes (List-ObsidianNotes.ps1)

Display a list of recently updated notes.

Parameters

Usage Examples

# List notes from the last 7 days
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/List-ObsidianNotes.ps1"

# List notes from the last 30 days, up to 50 results
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/List-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Days 30 -MaxResults 50

Output example:

UPDATED:2026-02-16 12:34|PATH:Projects/XXX/note.md
UPDATED:2026-02-15 09:10|PATH:Inbox/note2.md

The AI can parse each line starting with UPDATED: to extract the relative path (PATH:).

Read Note (Get-ObsidianNote.ps1)

Retrieve the content of a specified note file. Supports three modes: full text, first N lines preview, and section by heading.

Parameters

Output Format

All modes output in a fixed format that is easy for the AI to parse.

---OBSIDIAN-NOTE-BEGIN---
PATH: relative/path/to/note.md
MODE: full|preview|section
HEADING: heading name (section mode only)
---CONTENT-START---
(note content or excerpt here)
...
---CONTENT-END---
---OBSIDIAN-NOTE-END---

The AI should extract the body text from between ---CONTENT-START--- and ---CONTENT-END---.

Usage Examples

# Get full note content
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Path "Projects/XXX/note.md" -Mode full

# Preview first 60 lines
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Path "Projects/XXX/note.md" -Mode preview -PreviewLines 60

# Get a specific section by heading
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Path "Projects/XXX/note.md" -Mode section -Heading "Results"

# Full heading specification is also supported
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Path "Projects/XXX/note.md" -Mode section -Heading "## Results"

Search Workflow Examples

Case 1: "Tell me what I've noted about performance"

# Step 1: Tag search
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "performance" -SearchType tag

# Step 2: Heading search
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "performance" -SearchType heading

# Step 3: Full-text search
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "performance improvement|optimization" -SearchType fulltext -Context 2

Case 2: "I want to check my recent notes"

# Get the list of notes from the last 7 days
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/List-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Days 7

# Use the PATH from the output to retrieve the full content of a specific note
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Path "Projects/XXX/note.md" -Mode full

Case 3: "Save this as a note"

# Save the note
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Save-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Title "Title" -Content "Content to save" -Folder "Notes"

# To review the content later
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/List-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Days 1
# Get the PATH of the latest note and read its content
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Path "Notes/2026-02-16-Title.md" -Mode preview -PreviewLines 40

Case 4: "I only want to read a specific heading"

# Search for notes with "performance" in headings
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Search-ObsidianNotes.ps1" -Pattern "performance" -SearchType heading

# Use the PATH and heading name from the output to retrieve just that section
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "$HOME/.claude/skills/obsidian-explorer/script/Get-ObsidianNote.ps1" -Path "Projects/XXX/note.md" -Mode section -Heading "performance"

Guidelines

• Write searchable notes: use specific terms, leverage headings and tags
• Use descriptive filenames: include dates and categories for easier retrieval
• Organize folder structure: categorize by purpose such as Projects, Work, Learning (2-3 levels deep)
• Only save information worth reusing; periodically clean up temporary notes

Troubleshooting

Environment variable not recognized

# Check from bash
powershell.exe -Command "echo \$env:OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH"

Add $env:OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH = "path" to your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE).

Japanese characters are garbled

UTF-8 encoding is specified within the scripts. If the issue persists, check your terminal's encoding settings.

Too many search results

• Use -MaxResults to limit the number of results
• Use -Folder to narrow the search scope
• Use -SearchType filename or heading to refine the search
• Combine multiple keywords with regex (e.g., keyword1.*keyword2)