Obsidian Vault Search

Obsidian Vault Search

Raw grep on a vault is noisy. You search "API" and get 200 hits across daily notes, templates, meeting notes, and the actual design doc you wanted. Obsidian vaults are structured — frontmatter, wikilinks, folders, tags — and search should use that structure. This skill searches smart: by property, by link graph, by folder scope, not just by keyword.

When To Activate

• User says "find in vault", "search vault", "search obsidian"
• User says "which note has...", "where did I write about..."
• User says "find all meetings about...", "show notes tagged..."
• User needs to locate a specific note or set of notes
• Before creating a note (to check if it exists)
• Any vault-level search that isn't just opening a known file

Do NOT trigger for:

• Searching code repositories (use zero-in)
• Web search (different skill entirely)
• Single file content search (just read the file)

Instructions

Step 1: Classify the Search

Determine what kind of search before running anything:

| Request | Search Type | Method | |---------|------------|--------| | "Find note about X" | Content search | grep + frontmatter | | "All meetings with Sarah" | Property search | frontmatter scan | | "Notes tagged #project" | Tag search | frontmatter scan | | "What links to [[Note]]" | Backlink search | wikilink grep | | "Notes in Projects/ folder" | Folder search | find | | "Recent notes about X" | Combined | content + date sort | | "Everything related to X" | Graph search | links + content |

Match the search method to the request. Don't grep the whole vault for a property-based question.

Step 2: Run the Appropriate Search

Content search — find notes mentioning a term:

# Basic content search
grep -rl "search term" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md" | head -20

# With context (shows surrounding lines)
grep -rn "search term" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md" -C 2 | head -50

# Case insensitive
grep -ril "search term" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

Property search — find notes with specific frontmatter:

# Find by type
grep -rl "^type: meeting" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

# Find by status
grep -rl "^status: active" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

# Find by tag in frontmatter
grep -rl "tags:" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md" | \
  xargs grep -l "project-name"

# Find by attendee
grep -rl "attendees:" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md" | \
  xargs grep -l "Sarah"

# Combined: active meetings
grep -rl "^type: meeting" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md" | \
  xargs grep -l "^status: active"

Tag search — find notes with specific tags:

# Inline tags
grep -rl "#tag-name" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

# Frontmatter tags
grep -rl "  - tag-name" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

# Both
grep -rl "#tag-name\|  - tag-name" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

Backlink search — find notes that link to a specific note:

# Find all notes linking to [[Note Name]]
grep -rl "\[\[Note Name" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

# Find links with aliases
grep -rl "\[\[Note Name|" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

Folder search — find notes in a specific location:

find "$VAULT_PATH/Projects/project-name" -name "*.md" | sort

Date-range search — find notes by date:

# Notes modified in last 7 days
find "$VAULT_PATH" -name "*.md" -mtime -7 | sort

# Notes with date property in range
grep -rl "^date: 2026-02" "$VAULT_PATH" --include="*.md"

CLI search (if available):

# Official CLI
obsidian search query="search term" limit=20

# Yakitrak CLI
obsidian-cli search-content "search term"

Step 3: Rank and Present Results

Don't dump raw grep output. Process the results:

1. Deduplicate — same note from multiple matches
2. Sort by relevance:

• Title match > heading match > body match
• Recent notes > older notes
• Exact match > partial match

1. Extract context — show WHY each result matched
2. Show frontmatter — type, status, date for each result

# For each result, extract useful metadata
for file in $RESULTS; do
  echo "---"
  echo "File: $file"
  # Get frontmatter type and status
  head -10 "$file" | grep "^type:\|^status:\|^date:"
  # Get the match context
  grep -n "search term" "$file" | head -3
done

Step 4: Offer Follow-Up Actions

After presenting results, offer relevant next steps:

• "Open [[Note Name]] to read it?"
• "Want to see notes that link to this one?"
• "Should I create a base view for this query?"
• "Want to add this to today's daily note?"

Output Format

## Vault Search: "query"

**Found:** X notes

### Results

1. **[[Note Title]]** — Notes/note-title.md
   Type: note | Status: active | Date: 2026-02-10
   > ...matching context...

2. **[[Another Note]]** — Projects/project/another-note.md
   Type: meeting | Status: active | Date: 2026-02-08
   > ...matching context...

### Related
- [[Linked Note 1]] (linked from result #1)
- [[Linked Note 2]] (linked from result #2)

Want to open any of these, or refine the search?

NEVER

• Dump raw grep output without processing
• Search the entire vault without narrowing scope first
• Return more than 20 results without asking to narrow
• Search without indicating what was searched and how
• Open or modify notes during a search (search is read-only)

ALWAYS

• Classify the search type before running commands
• Use the most targeted search method for the request
• Show frontmatter metadata alongside results
• Deduplicate results
• Offer follow-up actions
• Suggest narrowing if too many results (>20)

Example

User: "Find all my meeting notes about the API project"

Vault Search: "meeting notes about API project"

Search: type == meeting AND (content contains "API" OR project == "api")

Found: 4 notes

1. [[2026-02-10 API Design Review]] — Projects/api/meetings/2026-02-10-api-design-review.md
   Type: meeting | Status: active | Date: 2026-02-10
   > Discussed rate limiting approach and endpoint contracts

2. [[2026-02-05 API Sprint Planning]] — Projects/api/meetings/2026-02-05-api-sprint-planning.md
   Type: meeting | Status: active | Date: 2026-02-05
   > Sprint goals: auth middleware, rate limiting, documentation

3. [[2026-01-28 API Kickoff]] — Projects/api/meetings/2026-01-28-api-kickoff.md
   Type: meeting | Status: completed | Date: 2026-01-28
   > Initial scope: REST API for mobile app

4. [[2026-01-20 API Requirements]] — Projects/api/meetings/2026-01-20-api-requirements.md
   Type: meeting | Status: completed | Date: 2026-01-20
   > Requirements gathering with product team

Related notes:
- [[api-design]] (linked from 3 meetings)
- [[api-rate-limiting]] (linked from #1, #2)

Want to open any of these?

What DOESN'T work:

• Grepping "meeting" across the whole vault — matches templates, daily notes, random mentions
• Searching by filename only — misses notes where the content matches but the filename doesn't
• Not checking frontmatter — you find notes that MENTION meetings but aren't meeting notes
• Returning 50+ results — user can't process that, narrow the search

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: ElliotJLT
• Source: ElliotJLT/Claude-Skill-Potions
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.