Obsidian

Obsidian

Expert at building and maintaining knowledge bases in Obsidian — beyond syntax, into systems.

Companion to official skills: Install kepano/obsidian-skills for markdown syntax, CLI, bases, and canvas. This skill covers everything else.

Overview

• Vault organization — folder structures, naming, MOCs, bulk operations, broken link detection
• Dataview — SQL-like queries over your vault (tables, lists, tasks, calendars)
• Templater — Advanced templating with JavaScript, dynamic dates, file creation
• Workflow patterns — Zettelkasten, PARA, daily notes, periodic reviews, MOCs
• Plugin ecosystem — Dataview, Templater, Tasks, Calendar, Excalidraw, and more
• MCP & REST API — AI agent integration via MCP servers and Local REST API
• Sync & publish — Obsidian Sync, git-based sync, Obsidian Publish, digital gardens

Quick Start

# Install official CLI + companion skills
brew install obsidian-cli
npx skills add git@github.com:kepano/obsidian-skills.git

# Set up MCP server for AI integration
npm install -g mcp-obsidian

Core Concepts

MOC (Map of Content) — A note that links to related notes on a topic. Acts as an entry point to a cluster of knowledge. Better than folders for cross-cutting topics.

Dataview — Treats your vault as a database. Query notes by properties, tags, links, and inline fields using DQL (Dataview Query Language) or JavaScript.

Templater — Template engine with JavaScript execution, dynamic dates, file/folder operations. Runs on note creation or manually.

Documentation

Vault Management

• Vault Organization — Folder structures, naming, MOCs
• Graph Analysis — Find orphans, hubs, clusters

Key Plugins

• Dataview — Query language, tables, lists, tasks
• Templater — Advanced templates with JS
• Tasks Plugin — Task management and queries
• Plugin Ecosystem — Essential community plugins

Workflow Patterns

• Zettelkasten — Atomic notes, fleeting→permanent
• PARA Method — Projects, Areas, Resources, Archives
• Daily Notes Workflow — Daily/weekly/periodic reviews
• MOCs Guide — Maps of Content patterns

AI Integration

• MCP Servers — Set up Obsidian MCP for Claude/agents
• Local REST API — Programmatic vault access

Sync & Publishing

• Sync & Backup — Obsidian Sync, git, backups
• Publishing — Obsidian Publish, digital gardens

Common Workflows

Query all tasks due this week

TASK FROM ""
WHERE !completed AND due >= date(today) AND due <= date(today) + dur(7d)
SORT due ASC

Create a MOC from existing notes

# [[Topic]] MOC
- [[Note 1]] — brief description
- [[Note 2]] — brief description
Related: [[Other MOC]]

Set up MCP for Claude Code

// .claude/settings.json
{ "mcpServers": { "obsidian": { "command": "mcp-obsidian", "args": ["--vault", "/path/to/vault"] } } }

Upstream Sources

• Obsidian Help: https://help.obsidian.md
• Dataview: https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/
• Templater: https://silentvoid13.github.io/Templater/
• Official Skills: https://github.com/kepano/obsidian-skills

Sync & Update

When user runs sync: fetch latest from upstream, update docs/. When user runs diff: compare current vs upstream, report changes.