Obsidian Headless

Open beta Node.js 22+

Obsidian Headless is the standalone ob client for Obsidian Sync and Publish without desktop Obsidian. It can support remote backups, supervised server/agent projections, shared-team projections, and scheduled publishing.

It does not document general note edit/search/property/task commands, desktop metadata-cache access, the command palette, plugins, themes, workspaces, UI, DOM, CDP, or eval. External tools may edit synchronized Markdown under a separately approved writer policy; that is filesystem work, not an ob plugin-graph API.

Install and authentication

• Status: open beta.
• Runtime: Node.js 22 or later, separate from this site's Node 20.x build runtime.
• Install: npm install -g obsidian-headless.
• Installed command: standalone ob; it runs independently of the desktop obsidian CLI.
• Authentication: after exact approval, run ob login with credential-bearing options omitted so prompts remain interactive.
• Entitlement: Sync and Publish require active paid subscriptions.
• Logout or account switching requires exact approval.

ob login
ob logout

If already logged in, ob login displays account info. ob logout clears stored credentials.

Non-runnable login option metadata

The following official option names are completeness metadata, not shell syntax. Do not append them to ob login or provide their values through commands.

Option name	Official purpose
--email	Identifies the account during authentication.
--password	Supplies the account password.
--mfa	Supplies a multi-factor authentication code.

Never place credential values in commands, files, logs, CI, chat, prompts, screenshots, or receipts.

See Install and interactive authentication.

Complete command surface

• Authentication: ob login, ob logout (2)
• Sync: 8 commands
• Publish: 7 commands

Total: 17 current Headless commands.

Authority and safety

Headless Sync and Publish are transports or projections. They are not Agent HQ, an accepted Score, project decision authority, or trusted-wiki Gold. Never copy a live writable SQLite database between devices.

Stop for exact approval before authentication, logout/account switch, paid-service or billing changes, remote vault/site creation, setup/unlink, mode/scope changes, continuous Sync, broad or confirmation-suppressed Publish, or public user-content mutation.

Workflows

• Server and agent projection
• Backup projection
• Shared-team projection
• Scheduled automation
• Recovery
• Troubleshooting

Source

First-party source retrieved 2026-08-29 EDT: Obsidian Headless. See Sources.