CLI uses the currently open vault when vault= points to a non-existent selector

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1

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open any registered vault in desktop Obsidian.
    1. Run:
  3. bash
  4. /Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS/Obsidian version ‘vault=does-not-exist’
  5. /Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS/Obsidian vault ‘vault=does-not-exist’ ‘info=path’
  6. /Applications/Obsidian.app/Contents/MacOS/Obsidian read ‘vault=does-not-exist’ ‘path=some-note.md’
  7.
    1. Observe the output.

  9. Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

N. I searched the forum for duplicates first. I have not yet gone through the full troubleshooting flow because this reproduces when invoking the official CLI binary directly and appears to happen at vault selection before any plugin/theme-specific behavior.

Expected result

If vault= does not match any registered vault, the CLI should fail explicitly, for example with a non-zero exit code and Vault not found.

Actual result

The commands succeed against the currently open vault instead:

  • version returns the app version
    • vault info=path returns the currently open vault path
      • read returns note content from the currently open vault
    • That makes shell scripts and automation think the target vault was resolved successfully even though the selector does not exist.

  • Environment

SYSTEM INFO:

Obsidian version: v1.12.4

Installer version: v1.12.4

Operating system: macOS 15.7.3 (arm64)

No custom helper is needed to reproduce this. The commands above call the official Obsidian binary directly.

Additional information

I found related but different threads about CLI and URI behavior, including:

  • Command Line Interface to open folders (and files) in Obsidian from the terminal
    • URI callback not working correctly (trying to open from CLI on linux)
  • I could not find an existing report for this exact invalid-selector fallback behavior.

This seems especially risky for automation and CLI usage because an invalid selector fails open instead of fail closed.

2

Maybe we should error out if vault= is not the first arg.

3

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