Obsidian CLI read transport

Use this skill only to detect transport and read or search a selected vault. The official executable is obsidian; binary presence alone does not prove it is usable.

Resolve the installed product root from this skill's own location, not from the vault or current working directory:

PRODUCT_ROOT=/absolute/path/to/installed/claude-obsidian
DETECT_TRANSPORT="$PRODUCT_ROOT/scripts/detect-transport.sh"
test -f "$DETECT_TRANSPORT"

Every ../wiki/references/ link in this file resolves the same way, relative to this skill's own directory under $PRODUCT_ROOT, never relative to the selected vault's wiki/ directory.

Detect safely

Probe without persisting host state:

bash "$DETECT_TRANSPORT" --peek --vault "$VAULT"

Trust available.cli.usable, not merely present or exit status. A supported CLI can still be unavailable because the Obsidian app is not running, command line access is disabled, or its response is an error. Use filesystem reads as the portable fallback.

Persist a refreshed .vault-meta/transport.json only when the user or setup workflow asks for a transport snapshot:

bash "$DETECT_TRANSPORT" --force --vault "$VAULT"

That file is derived runtime configuration, not knowledge content. Preserve a valid manual_override recorded by the detector.

Read and search

Run official CLI commands from the selected vault so Obsidian resolves the correct workspace. Confirm supported syntax with the installed CLI before relying on optional commands. Typical read-only forms are:

(cd "$VAULT" && obsidian read path="$NOTE")
(cd "$VAULT" && obsidian search query="$QUERY")

Use read-only commands for backlinks, tags, or Bases results only when the detector reports the CLI ready. Otherwise read files under $VAULT directly and use rg for search. Reject absolute note arguments, traversal, symlinks, or resolved paths outside the selected vault.

Mutation boundary

Do not use CLI create, write, append, property-set, daily-append, move, rename, or delete commands. Do not replace those commands with direct filesystem writes. Any knowledge or configuration change must be expressed as one reviewed transaction through the portable core; see operation transactions.

Transport choice never changes mutation semantics. The CLI is an optional read surface, not a lock manager, transaction engine, or Git checkpoint mechanism.

Checkpoint

Observe actual capability, think about the least complex read transport, verify that every resolved path stays in the vault, and accept filesystem fallback when the CLI is not ready.