Siyuan

SiYuan Note API for searching, reading, creating, and managing blocks and documents in a self-hosted knowledge base via curl.

Skill metadata


Source	Optional — install with `hermes skills install official/productivity/siyuan`
Path	`optional-skills/productivity/siyuan`
Version	`1.0.0`
Author	FEUAZUR
License	MIT
Tags	`SiYuan`, `Notes`, `Knowledge Base`, `PKM`, `API`
Related skills	`obsidian`, `notion`

Reference: full SKILL.md

info

The following is the complete skill definition that Hermes loads when this skill is triggered. This is what the agent sees as instructions when the skill is active.

SiYuan Note API

Use the SiYuan kernel API via curl to search, read, create, update, and delete blocks and documents in a self-hosted knowledge base. No extra tools needed -- just curl and an API token.

Prerequisites

Install and run SiYuan (desktop or Docker)
Get your API token: Settings > About > API token
Store it in ~/.hermes/.env:
```
SIYUAN_TOKEN=your_token_here
SIYUAN_URL=http://127.0.0.1:6806
```
SIYUAN_URL defaults to http://127.0.0.1:6806 if not set.

API Basics

All SiYuan API calls are POST with JSON body. Every request follows this pattern:

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/..." \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"param": "value"}'

Responses are JSON with this structure:

{"code": 0, "msg": "", "data": { ... }}

code: 0 means success. Any other value is an error -- check msg for details.

ID format: SiYuan IDs look like 20210808180117-6v0mkxr (14-digit timestamp + 7 alphanumeric chars).

Quick Reference

Operation	Endpoint
Full-text search	`/api/search/fullTextSearchBlock`
SQL query	`/api/query/sql`
Read block	`/api/block/getBlockKramdown`
Read children	`/api/block/getChildBlocks`
Get path	`/api/filetree/getHPathByID`
Get attributes	`/api/attr/getBlockAttrs`
List notebooks	`/api/notebook/lsNotebooks`
List documents	`/api/filetree/listDocsByPath`
Create notebook	`/api/notebook/createNotebook`
Create document	`/api/filetree/createDocWithMd`
Append block	`/api/block/appendBlock`
Update block	`/api/block/updateBlock`
Rename document	`/api/filetree/renameDocByID`
Set attributes	`/api/attr/setBlockAttrs`
Delete block	`/api/block/deleteBlock`
Delete document	`/api/filetree/removeDocByID`
Export as Markdown	`/api/export/exportMdContent`

Common Operations

Search (Full-Text)

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/search/fullTextSearchBlock" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "meeting notes", "page": 0}' | jq '.data.blocks[:5]'

Search (SQL)

Query the blocks database directly. Only SELECT statements are safe.

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/query/sql" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"stmt": "SELECT id, content, type, box FROM blocks WHERE content LIKE '\''%keyword%'\'' AND type='\''p'\'' LIMIT 20"}' | jq '.data'

Useful columns: id, parent_id, root_id, box (notebook ID), path, content, type, subtype, created, updated.

Read Block Content

Returns block content in Kramdown (Markdown-like) format.

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/block/getBlockKramdown" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id": "20210808180117-6v0mkxr"}' | jq '.data.kramdown'

Read Child Blocks

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/block/getChildBlocks" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id": "20210808180117-6v0mkxr"}' | jq '.data'

Get Human-Readable Path

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/filetree/getHPathByID" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id": "20210808180117-6v0mkxr"}' | jq '.data'

Get Block Attributes

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/attr/getBlockAttrs" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id": "20210808180117-6v0mkxr"}' | jq '.data'

List Notebooks

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/notebook/lsNotebooks" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{}' | jq '.data.notebooks[] | {id, name, closed}'

List Documents in a Notebook

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/filetree/listDocsByPath" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"notebook": "NOTEBOOK_ID", "path": "/"}' | jq '.data.files[] | {id, name}'

Create a Document

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/filetree/createDocWithMd" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "notebook": "NOTEBOOK_ID",
    "path": "/Meeting Notes/2026-03-22",
    "markdown": "# Meeting Notes\n\n- Discussed project timeline\n- Assigned tasks"
  }' | jq '.data'

Create a Notebook

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/notebook/createNotebook" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "My New Notebook"}' | jq '.data.notebook.id'

Append Block to Document

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/block/appendBlock" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "parentID": "DOCUMENT_OR_BLOCK_ID",
    "data": "New paragraph added at the end.",
    "dataType": "markdown"
  }' | jq '.data'

Also available: /api/block/prependBlock (same params, inserts at the beginning) and /api/block/insertBlock (uses previousID instead of parentID to insert after a specific block).

Update Block Content

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/block/updateBlock" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "id": "BLOCK_ID",
    "data": "Updated content here.",
    "dataType": "markdown"
  }' | jq '.data'

Rename a Document

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/filetree/renameDocByID" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id": "DOCUMENT_ID", "title": "New Title"}'

Set Block Attributes

Custom attributes must be prefixed with custom-:

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/attr/setBlockAttrs" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "id": "BLOCK_ID",
    "attrs": {
      "custom-status": "reviewed",
      "custom-priority": "high"
    }
  }'

Delete a Block

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/block/deleteBlock" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id": "BLOCK_ID"}'

To delete a whole document: use /api/filetree/removeDocByID with {"id": "DOC_ID"}. To delete a notebook: use /api/notebook/removeNotebook with {"notebook": "NOTEBOOK_ID"}.

Export Document as Markdown

curl -s -X POST "${SIYUAN_URL:-http://127.0.0.1:6806}/api/export/exportMdContent" \
  -H "Authorization: Token $SIYUAN_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"id": "DOCUMENT_ID"}' | jq -r '.data.content'

Block Types

Common type values in SQL queries:

Type	Description
`d`	Document (root block)
`p`	Paragraph
`h`	Heading
`l`	List
`i`	List item
`c`	Code block
`m`	Math block
`t`	Table
`b`	Blockquote
`s`	Super block
`html`	HTML block

Pitfalls

All endpoints are POST -- even read-only operations. Do not use GET.
SQL safety: only use SELECT queries. INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE/DROP are dangerous and should never be sent.
ID validation: IDs match the pattern YYYYMMDDHHmmss-xxxxxxx. Reject anything else.
Error responses: always check code != 0 in responses before processing data.
Large documents: block content and export results can be very large. Use LIMIT in SQL and pipe through jq to extract only what you need.
Notebook IDs: when working with a specific notebook, get its ID first via lsNotebooks.

Alternative: MCP Server

If you prefer a native integration instead of curl, install the SiYuan MCP server:

# In ~/.hermes/config.yaml under mcp_servers:
mcp_servers:
  siyuan:
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "@porkll/siyuan-mcp"]
    env:
      SIYUAN_TOKEN: "your_token"
      SIYUAN_URL: "http://127.0.0.1:6806"

Skill metadata​

Reference: full SKILL.md​

SiYuan Note API

Prerequisites​

API Basics​

Quick Reference​

Common Operations​

Search (Full-Text)​

Search (SQL)​

Read Block Content​

Read Child Blocks​

Get Human-Readable Path​

Get Block Attributes​

List Notebooks​

List Documents in a Notebook​

Create a Document​

Create a Notebook​

Append Block to Document​

Update Block Content​

Rename a Document​

Set Block Attributes​

Delete a Block​

Export Document as Markdown​

Block Types​

Pitfalls​

Alternative: MCP Server​