Capture, track, and review
Your tools are connected. Let's put them to work.
- Voice (Wispr Flow)
- Type or paste
With Wispr Flow running, just start speaking. Your words appear as text in Gemini CLI automatically. Say what you need naturally — Gemini understands and runs the right commands for you.
Copy any prompt from this page and paste it into Gemini CLI. Or type your own request in natural language. No special syntax needed — just describe what you want.
Capture your first thought
Start Gemini CLI
Open your terminal and start Gemini CLI. This is the only raw command you need to type in this entire tutorial:
Copy this commandgeminiFrom here on, everything is natural language.
Your first capture
Say or type this prompt:
Say this or copy this promptOpen my daily note in Obsidian, and add this line at the bottom:
"Met Sarah at lunch — she mentioned a job opening at Xero"Switch to Obsidian — your note now has that line at the bottom. It appeared instantly, no clicking or switching apps required.
What just happened? You described what you wanted in plain language. Gemini CLI understood that you wanted to append text to your daily note, figured out the right Obsidian commands to run, and executed them for you. You never had to learn any command syntax.
Add a task
Now add a task with a checkbox:
Say this or copy this promptAdd a task to my Obsidian daily note:
"Send CV to Sarah by Friday"
Make it a checkbox so I can track it.In Obsidian, you will see a clickable checkbox next to your task.
What just happened? Gemini understood that "make it a checkbox" means using Obsidian's task syntax (
- [ ]). You did not need to know that — you just described what you wanted and Gemini handled the formatting.Rapid-fire captures
Try a few more to see how natural it feels. Each prompt adds something different to your daily note.
A meeting note:
Say this or copy this promptAdd to my daily note: Team meeting — new project starting in April, need to review the briefA task for later:
Say this or copy this promptAdd a task to my daily note: Buy groceries — milk, bread, eggsAn idea to come back to:
Say this or copy this promptAdd to my daily note: Idea — start a weekly reflection journalNotice how flexible the language is. You can say "add to my daily note", "put this in my daily note", "append to today's note" — Gemini understands all of these. There is no single right way to phrase it.
Track your tasks
You have been adding tasks. Now let's manage them — still using nothing but natural language.
List today's tasks
Say this or copy this promptShow me all the tasks in my Obsidian daily noteYou should see a list of your tasks with their current status — which ones are done and which are still open.
Mark a task as done
Say this or copy this promptMark the task about sending my CV as doneThe checkbox changes from empty to checked — in both the terminal output and in Obsidian.
See what is left
Say this or copy this promptShow me only the tasks I haven't finished yetThis filters your task list to show only the incomplete items — a quick way to see what is still on your plate.
Notice you do not need to know line numbers or command syntax. Just describe what you want — "mark the task about sending my CV" — and Gemini figures out which task you mean and how to update it.
Review your day
At the end of the day (or any time), review everything you captured.
Read your daily note
Say this or copy this promptRead my Obsidian daily note and show me everything I captured todayThis shows the full contents of today's daily note — every thought, task, and idea you added throughout the day.
Search for a person
Say this or copy this promptSearch my Obsidian vault for any notes that mention SarahThis finds every note that mentions "Sarah" — whether it was today, last week, or last month.
Search with context
Say this or copy this promptSearch my Obsidian vault for notes containing the word project, and show me the matching linesThis shows the actual lines that contain your search term, so you can quickly find the information you need without opening each note.
Search is one of the most powerful features. As your vault grows, you will have weeks and months of notes. Being able to search across all of them by simply asking means you never lose anything — every thought you captured is findable.
Go further — try your own requests
The prompts above are just the beginning. Here are some creative requests to show how flexible natural language is:
Add a heading called 'Afternoon Goals' to my daily note, then add three empty checkboxes underneath
Read my daily note and summarise what I did today in 3 bullet points
Create a new note in Obsidian called 'Meeting Notes - March 25' and add a heading, then add bullet points about the topics we discussed
How many notes do I have in my Obsidian vault?
What tags do I use most in my Obsidian vault?
Open a random note from my vault — surprise me
This is the magic of natural language. You do not need to memorise commands — just describe what you want. If Gemini is not sure what you mean, it will ask you to clarify.
Troubleshooting
Gemini says it cannot run obsidian commands
Make sure Obsidian is running and the CLI is enabled. Test the CLI directly by running obsidian help in a separate terminal window. If that works but Gemini still cannot run commands, try exiting Gemini CLI (/quit) and starting it again.
Gemini asks for permission to run a command
This is normal. Type y and press Enter to allow the command. Gemini CLI asks for your permission before running terminal commands — this is a safety feature to make sure you are comfortable with what it is about to do.
My voice input has errors
Wispr Flow may occasionally mishear technical terms or proper nouns. You can review and correct the text in Gemini CLI before pressing Enter. If voice input is causing too many errors, switch to typing or pasting prompts instead.
Nothing appears in my Obsidian note
Make sure Obsidian is running — Gemini CLI communicates with the Obsidian app through the CLI, so Obsidian needs to be open. Also check that you have the correct vault selected if you have more than one.
Nice work — you have captured thoughts, managed tasks, and searched your notes, all by speaking or typing naturally. Head to Keep going for ideas on building this into a daily habit.