Foam CLI

The foam command line tool lets you work with your Foam workspace from the terminal — search, inspect, and manage notes without opening VS Code.

Installation

npm install -g foam-cli

Usage

foam <command> [options]

Set the FOAM_WORKSPACE environment variable to avoid typing --workspace on every command:

export FOAM_WORKSPACE=/path/to/your/notes

All commands accept --format json for machine-readable output, useful for scripting.

Commands

Command	Description
foam daily	Show or create the daily note for a date
foam grep	Search note content by pattern
foam links	Show links to and from a note
foam lint	Check notes for issues
foam list	List notes, tags, orphans, placeholders, and more
foam mcp	Expose the workspace to AI agents via MCP
foam note	Show, create, move, or delete notes
foam outline	Show the heading structure of a note
foam rename	Rename notes, tags, sections, or block anchors
foam search	Search notes by title, tag, or frontmatter
foam tag	List, rename, or search tags
foam update	Check for a newer version of foam-cli

LINKS TO THIS PAGE

Using Foam Installation