laurigates/properties

Obsidian Properties Management

When to Use This Skill

| Use this skill when... | Use the alternative instead when... | |---|---| | Reading, setting, or removing a single YAML property on a live note via the running CLI | Doing offline bulk frontmatter rewrites across many files — use vault-frontmatter | | Updating status:, tags:, or aliases: on a note Obsidian currently has open | Editing note body content rather than frontmatter — use vault-files | | Confirming a property change is reflected in Obsidian's metadata cache | Repairing broken wikilinks after a rename — use vault-wikilinks |

Read, set, and remove YAML frontmatter properties on Obsidian notes using the official CLI.

Prerequisites

• Obsidian desktop v1.12.4+ with CLI enabled
• Obsidian must be running

When to Use

Use this skill automatically when:

• User wants to read or inspect note metadata/frontmatter
• User needs to set, update, or add properties to notes
• User wants to remove properties from notes
• User asks about note status, tags, dates, or custom fields
• User needs to manage aliases on notes

Core Operations

Read Properties

# Read all properties from a note
obsidian properties file="Project Spec"

# JSON output for parsing
obsidian properties file="Project Spec" format=json

Set Properties

# Set a text property
obsidian properties:set file="Note" status=active

# Set a date property
obsidian properties:set file="Note" due=2026-03-15 type=date

# Set multiple properties
obsidian properties:set file="Note" status=draft priority=high

# Set tags property
obsidian properties:set file="Note" tags="blog,publish" type=tags

Remove Properties

# Remove a single property
obsidian properties:remove file="Note" key=draft

# Remove multiple properties
obsidian properties:remove file="Note" key=old_field

Property Types

| Type | Example | Notes | |------|---------|-------| | Text | status=active | Default type | | Date | due=2026-03-15 type=date | ISO 8601 format | | Tags | tags="a,b" type=tags | Comma-separated | | Number | priority=1 | Numeric values | | Boolean | published=true | true/false | | List | aliases="Name1,Name2" type=tags | Comma-separated |

Common Patterns

Status Workflow

# Set draft status
obsidian properties:set file="Post" status=draft

# Move to review
obsidian properties:set file="Post" status=review

# Mark published
obsidian properties:set file="Post" status=published published=true

Alias Management

# Add aliases for wikilink resolution
obsidian properties:set file="JavaScript" aliases="JS,js,ECMAScript" type=tags

Agentic Optimizations

| Context | Command | |---------|---------| | Read properties (structured) | obsidian properties file="X" format=json | | Set property | obsidian properties:set file="X" key=value | | Remove property | obsidian properties:remove file="X" key=field | | Typed property | obsidian properties:set file="X" field=val type=date |

Related Skills

• vault-files — Read and create notes
• search-discovery — Search by property values with [key:value] syntax