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