My Obsidian Evolved Again - Obsidian CLI + Claude Code
I love upgrades that seems unassuming...
At this point I feel like a Pokémon trainer watching Charmander become Charizard.
Every evolution unlocks a new ability.
Obsidian gave me structure.
Claude Code gave me read, write, think.
Wispr Flow gave me hands-free capture.
This evolution? It learned a new move: control the screen.
The problem Up Until Now
Claude Code lives in my terminal.
Obsidian lives in its own app.
I’ve been running them side by side for months, and Claude has learned exactly how my vault works. It reads my notes, creates new ones, logs my day, and processes meetings.
Claude could do everything behind the scenes, but it had no way to control what I was actually seeing on screen. It couldn’t open a note for me. It couldn’t navigate.
Then I Found The Obsidian CLI (Command Line Interface).
“Anything you can do in Obsidian can be done from the command line.”
It’s built directly into Obsidian (not a plugin), bridging your terminal and Obsidian and letting anything running in your terminal, like Claude Code, control what happens on your screen.
You know that scene in Iron Man where Tony talks to Jarvis?
Tony walks in. No keyboard. No mouse.
“Wake up. Daddy’s home.”“Pull up the schematics.”
“Enhance.”
“Cross-reference last Tuesday.”
Holographic screens flying around. Data surfacing exactly when he asks for it. He never clicks. He never searches. He just speaks, and the system responds.
That’s the vision.
That’s where this is going.
Before the CLI, I had Jarvis locked in the basement.
He could do the research, crunch the numbers, write the report.
He just couldn’t put anything on my screen.
Now Jarvis has access to the holographic screens.
“Jarvis, process this meeting.”
Summary created. Action items extracted. Note opens.“Jarvis, open the lasagne recipe.”
There it is.“Jarvis, log gym, 45 min biceps.”
Logged. Note opens.“Jarvis, find the last two Charmander feet pics.”
Both open. Right in front of me.
No searching. No clicking. No sweating through your folder structure like a drug addict tearing apart the couch cushions looking for the next hit.
I speak. Immediate relief.
More upgrades. More power.
One problem:
You Can’t Multiply By Zero.
If your vault is empty, Jarvis has nothing to pull up on those holographic screens. No notes to open. No meetings to reference. No recipes to find.
All that functionality, and your Jarvis is just standing in the corner staring at his feet. Granted, they are handsome feet.
But if you’ve been building, even casually, your system just learned to talk back.
And it has a lot to say.
How Do You Access It?
Two things to do manually in Obsidian:
Update to Obsidian 1.12+ and ensure you have access to the CLI feature (currently Early Access, planned to be free for all users)
Go to Settings → Core plugins, toggle on CLI, and click “Register CLI path”
Keep Obsidian running. The CLI talks to it as a server.
Then launch Claude Code in your vault:
claude -p /path/to/your/obsidian/vaultAnd prompt it:
“Verify the Obsidian CLI is working by running obsidian help. Then add instructions to CLAUDE.md for how to use the Obsidian CLI for all vault interactions: searching, reading, creating, appending to notes, managing properties, daily notes, backlinks, tags, and using --format=json for parseable output. Also check what vault this is connected to with obsidian vault.”
That’s it. Future Claude Code sessions in your vault will automatically use the CLI instead of raw file reads.
A Quick Note on AI and Your Vault
I know I’ve been talking a lot about AI in knowledge management lately. That’s because I genuinely believe this is the next evolution, not a trend.
I hear the privacy concerns. I’m actively working toward running these tools locally (mac mini gang) so your data stays yours.
Even if you’re not ready to evolve your Pikachu yet, at least be aware of what’s possible for when you are.
Your Obsidian’s Next Evolution
If you want to hand your system its next evolution, I run Claude and Obsidian workshops regularly.
In the workshop, we run through different use cases to get the gears turning on how you can use this inside your life and your Obsidian:
Meeting processing
Source processing
Daily logging
Work sessions
Content creation
You pick the ones that fit your workflow.
The course that comes with the workshop teaches you exactly how to upload each skill.
Think Neo in The Matrix:
“I know kung fu.”
Except it’s:
“I know meeting processing.”
“I know project management.”
“I know daily note logging”
Upload. Done.
Each skill is a new ability your vault didn’t have five minutes ago. You simply choose which ones you want to learn.
If you’d rather skip the learning curve and have it all working by the end of the day, book a one-on-one consulting session and we’ll set everything up in one go.
Much love,
Dee
Construct by Dee