Adding Entries

Plain entries

Running obsidian-logging with text and no -l, -e, or -S flag appends that text as a new entry to the default log section of today’s daily note:

obsidian-logging This is a log entry

A timestamp for the current time is prepended, formatted according to the configured list type:

• Bullet mode: - 14:30:45 This is a log entry
• Table mode: | 14:30:45 | This is a log entry |

Quoting the entry text is optional — all trailing positional arguments are joined with spaces — but quoting is recommended if your entry contains flag-like tokens (e.g. starting with -).

Overriding the time: -t / --time

obsidian-logging -t 14:30 "Team standup meeting"        # becomes 14:30:00
obsidian-logging -t 14:30:45 "Team standup meeting"      # explicit seconds
obsidian-logging -t "2:30 PM" "Afternoon meeting"        # becomes 02:30:00 PM
obsidian-logging -t "2:30:45 PM" "Afternoon meeting"     # explicit seconds

• Accepts HH:mm, HH:mm:ss, h:mm AM/PM, or h:mm:ss AM/PM.
• If seconds are omitted, they default to 00.
• Entries are kept sorted chronologically within their section. If the given timestamp already exists in the section, the seconds are incremented until a unique timestamp is found.
• Adding a new entry reformats every existing timestamp in that section to include seconds, if any are missing them (see List Type and Time Format).

Targeting a category: -c / --category

obsidian-logging -c work "Team meeting at 2pm"
obsidian-logging -c personal "Gym workout"
obsidian-logging -c health "Doctor appointment"

Logs the entry to the section defined by section_header_<category> in your config, falling back to the default section if no such header is configured. See Section Headers and Categories.

Using a predefined phrase: -p / --phrase

obsidian-logging -p meeting
obsidian-logging -p meeting_with John Smith
obsidian-logging -p call_with Alice -t 14:30

See Predefined Phrases for how to define phrases and use argument placeholders ({0}, {*}, {#}).

Overriding format just for this call

• -T bullet / -T table — override list_type for this invocation.
• -f 12 / -f 24 — override time_format for this invocation.

obsidian-logging -T table -t 9:00 "Daily standup"
obsidian-logging -f 12 -t 2:30 PM "Afternoon meeting"

Silencing output: -s / --silent

Suppresses all output, including error messages — useful when calling obsidian-logging from scripts or other automation where you don’t want anything printed:

obsidian-logging -s "Logged quietly"