Backlinks Service

View incoming links and outgoing links for files.

Service Overview

The Backlinks service provides endpoints to analyze links between notes. Backlinks show what other notes reference a specific file, while outgoing links show what a file links to.

Base URL

/api/relationships/backlinks
/api/relationships/backlinks/outgoing

Endpoints

GET /api/relationships/backlinks

Get all files that link to a specific file (backlinks).

CLI Command: obsidian backlinks

Query Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`file`	string	No	Target file name or path
`path`	string	No	Full path to the file
`counts`	boolean	No	Include link counts
`format`	string	No	Output format
`vault`	string	No	Target vault name

Example Request:

curl "http://localhost:3000/api/relationships/backlinks?file=Notes.md&vault=youtube"

Example Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "type": "list",
    "data": [
      "Projects/Overview.md",
      "Daily/2026-05-09.md"
    ]
  }
}

With counts:

curl "http://localhost:3000/api/relationships/backlinks?file=Notes.md&counts=true&vault=youtube"

Python (with counts):

response = requests.get("http://localhost:3000/api/relationships/backlinks", params={
    "file": "Notes.md",
    "counts": "true",
    "vault": "youtube"
})

Using path:

curl "http://localhost:3000/api/relationships/backlinks?path=C:/vault/Notes.md&vault=youtube"

GET /api/relationships/backlinks/outgoing

Get all files that a specific file links to (outgoing links).

CLI Command: obsidian links

Query Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`file`	string	No	Source file name or path
`path`	string	No	Full path to the file
`vault`	string	No	Target vault name

Example Request:

curl "http://localhost:3000/api/relationships/backlinks/outgoing?file=Notes.md&vault=youtube"

Example Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "type": "list",
    "data": [
      "Projects/Overview.md",
      "Templates/daily.md",
      "Archive/Legacy.md"
    ]
  }
}

Use Cases

Graph Analysis

# Analyze link network
SOURCE="Notes.md"
BACKLINKS=$(curl -s "http://localhost:3000/api/relationships/backlinks?file=$SOURCE&vault=youtube" \
  | jq -r '.data.data[]')
OUTGOING=$(curl -s "http://localhost:3000/api/relationships/backlinks/outgoing?file=$SOURCE&vault=youtube" \
  | jq -r '.data.data[]')

echo "Backlinks to $SOURCE:"
echo "$BACKLINKS"
echo ""
echo "Links from $SOURCE:"
echo "$OUTGOING"

Find Unlinked References

# Find potential backlinks by searching for filename
curl -s "http://localhost:3000/api/search?query=Notes&vault=youtube" \
  | jq -r '.data.data[]'

Error Handling

File Not Found:

{
  "success": false,
  "error": "File not found: Notes.md"
}

No Links:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "type": "list",
    "data": []
  }
}

Links Service - Advanced link analysis
Search Service - Content search
Orphans Service - Find unlinked files

Notes

Links include wiki-links [[Notes]] and markdown links [text](Notes.md)
Unresolved links (to non-existent files) are tracked separately
Path parameters should be relative to vault root

Backlinks

On this page