Obsidian Vault Discovery

Obsidian Vault Discovery

This skill discovers configuration from an Obsidian vault. It uses the obsidian-cli (bundled with Obsidian 1.12+) as the primary method, falling back to direct file reads when Obsidian is not running.

When to Use

Invoke this skill (internally) when you need to determine:

• Vault location and root path
• Daily notes folder and date format
• Templates folder location
• Meeting notes folder (from CLAUDE.md conventions)
• People directory (from CLAUDE.md conventions)

Discovery Steps

1. Check CLI Availability

obsidian vault info=name

If this command succeeds, Obsidian is running and CLI-based discovery (steps 2–4) will work. If it fails (command not found or Obsidian not running), skip to the Fallback: File-Based Discovery section below.

> The obsidian-cli binary is at /Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS/obsidian-cli. Ensure /Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS is on the PATH, or use the full path.

2. Get Vault Root

obsidian vault info=path

Returns the absolute vault path, e.g.:

/Users/jlaska/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/Obsidian Vault

3. Read Plugin Configuration via eval

Fetch live plugin settings from the running Obsidian instance:

Daily Notes (core plugin):

obsidian eval "code=JSON.stringify(app.internalPlugins.getPluginById('daily-notes').instance.options)"

Returns:

{"template":"TEMPLATES/Daily Note Template","folder":"DAILY_NOTES","format":"YYYY/MM-MMMM/YYYY-MM-DD dddd"}

Templates (core plugin):

obsidian eval "code=JSON.stringify(app.internalPlugins.getPluginById('templates').instance.options)"

Returns:

{"folder":"TEMPLATES"}

Templater (community plugin — skip if not installed):

obsidian eval "code=JSON.stringify(app.plugins.getPlugin('templater-obsidian')?.settings)"

Returns settings including templates_folder, user_scripts_folder, and folder_templates.

4. Read Vault Conventions

Check CLAUDE.md in the vault root for vault-specific directory structure and naming conventions (this is not available via CLI):

cat "/CLAUDE.md"

Look for:

• Meetings folder (e.g., MEETINGS/)
• People directory (e.g., PEOPLE/)
• File naming patterns and frontmatter standards

5. Output Configuration Object

Return discovered configuration:

vault_root: /path/to/vault
vault_name: Obsidian Vault
daily_notes:
  folder: DAILY_NOTES
  format: "YYYY/MM-MMMM/YYYY-MM-DD dddd"
  template: TEMPLATES/Daily Note Template.md
meetings:
  folder: MEETINGS
  format: "YYYY/MM-Month"
  template: TEMPLATES/Meeting Template.md
people:
  folder: PEOPLE
templates:
  folder: TEMPLATES
scripts:
  folder: SCRIPTS

---

Fallback: File-Based Discovery

Use this when obsidian vault info=name fails (Obsidian is not running or CLI is unavailable).

Find vault root — Read ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/obsidian.json:

{
  "vaults": {
    "": {
      "path": "/path/to/vault",
      "ts": 1695397882102,
      "open": true
    }
  }
}

Prefer the vault with "open": true, then highest ts, or use cwd if it contains .obsidian/.

Daily Notes — Read /.obsidian/daily-notes.json

Templates — Read /.obsidian/templates.json

Templater — Read /.obsidian/plugins/templater-obsidian/data.json

Vault conventions — Read /CLAUDE.md

---

Additional CLI Commands for Consuming Skills

These commands are available to consuming skills (like daily-planner) for further vault introspection:

| Command | Description | |---------|-------------| | obsidian daily:path | Absolute path to today's daily note | | obsidian folders | All folder paths in the vault | | obsidian templates | List available template names | | obsidian plugins:enabled | List currently enabled plugins | | obsidian search keyword= | Full-text search across vault |

---

Configuration Sources

| Setting | Primary Source (CLI) | Fallback (file) | |---------|---------------------|-----------------| | Vault root | obsidian vault info=path | ~/Library/.../obsidian.json | | Daily notes folder/format | eval daily-notes options | .obsidian/daily-notes.json | | Templates folder | eval templates options | .obsidian/templates.json | | Templater config | eval templater settings | .obsidian/plugins/templater-obsidian/data.json | | Meetings folder | CLAUDE.md | Convention (MEETINGS/) | | People folder | CLAUDE.md | Convention (PEOPLE/) |

Usage by Other Skills

Other skills (like daily-planner) should invoke this skill first to get configuration, then use the discovered paths rather than hardcoded values.

Source & license

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

• Author: jlaska
• Source: jlaska/obsidian-claude-plugins
• License: MIT

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