Properties

Turn a collection of pages into something you can review and act on. Properties let you track status, dates, tags, people, sources, and other useful facts, while the Mac inspector makes those values easy to edit.

Properties are the fields stored in a page's YAML frontmatter. The Mac app presents them as typed controls; the web app lets you edit the same underlying YAML and browse metadata in Table view.

Choose properties for a question you want to answer

Start with a few consistent values. Properties should reduce effort in later work, not create a form you have to fill every time you write.

Edit through the Mac Properties panel

The panel sits near the top of a page. Common fields such as title, area, type, created, updated, confidence, and tags appear first, followed by custom fields.

Click a value to edit it. Use + to add a property. Hover the row to find its removal control. Renaming a property changes that page's field; it does not automatically rename the same field throughout the vault.

Understand the available types

The app infers the control from the value. If you edit YAML directly, quote strings that need to stay text and quote wikilinks so they remain valid YAML string values.

Use the built-in conveniences

• Tags: autocomplete helps reuse tags already present in your vault.
• Type: suggestions help reuse existing page types.
• Area: suggestions include top-level folders and values already used.
• Confidence: the Mac control offers low, medium, and high.
• Pinned: marking a page as pinned adds it to favorites.

Custom metadata remains available when your work needs it. You can record additional values in YAML, while the specialized controls may present a narrower set of choices.

Filter and compare

On Mac, property filtering helps narrow the collection to matching pages. Files, Table, Kanban, Calendar, and Cards offer different ways to browse the same pages on web and Mac. The web Table view sorts by title, area, or updated date; it does not expose every custom property as a column or filter.

For example, use a consistent type: decision to review decisions together, then compare their dates or confidence. Use status: in-progress on project pages to keep current work distinct from finished work.

An area value is metadata. It can guide views and graph relationships; changing it does not necessarily move the file to another folder. The web Kanban view groups pages by area for browsing. On Mac, you can select the Kanban grouping property and drag a card between columns to update that field. Neither action automatically moves the underlying file.

Give agents structured context

Try:

Find project pages marked in-progress. Read their current notes and summarize the next action for each, citing the pages you used.

Or:

Review the source pages for this project. Identify missing publication dates and suggest metadata corrections without applying them yet.

Properties make those requests clearer, but labels can be incomplete or stale. Ask the agent to inspect the page content where the answer matters.

Platform reference

Next: Frontmatter & Metadata for syntax, and Search & Views for browsing.