Vault Frontmatter Maintenance
When to Use This Skill
| Use this skill when... | Use the alternative instead when... |
|---|---|
Bulk-stripping legacy id: fields or null tags: entries across many .md files offline | Setting a single property on one live note via the running CLI — use properties |
Cleaning up unrendered {{title}} / <% tp.file.cursor() %> placeholders inside YAML | Repairing those markers in note body text — use vault-templates |
| Adding missing frontmatter blocks to notes that lack one | Consolidating the actual tag values once the YAML structure is sound — use vault-tags |
Offline, file-level repair of YAML frontmatter. Complements the properties skill (which uses the Obsidian CLI) by operating on .md files directly — safe for bulk mechanical passes.
When to Use
- Stripping the legacy
id:field from a batch of notes - Removing unrendered Templater markers (
<% tp.file.cursor() %>,{{title}}) - Cleaning up
nullentries insidetags:lists - Adding missing frontmatter blocks to notes that lack one
- Ensuring work-namespace notes carry
context: work - Normalizing tag case / pluralization drift
Canonical Frontmatter Shape
---
tags:
- 🛠️/neovim # emoji-prefixed category tag
- 📝/notes # note-type tag
context: work # work-namespace notes only
---
Rules:
- No
id:field — removed from all current templates. - 2–3 tags per note; every tag either
emoji/subcategoryor a bare note-type like📝/moc. - No bare emoji placeholders (
📝,🌱,📝/🌱) — they indicate the tag was never specified. - No
nulltag values — YAML must be valid. - Work-namespace notes (e.g. under
work/) carrycontext: work; personal notes omit the field.
Detection Patterns
| Issue | Grep pattern | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Legacy id: | ^id: inside frontmatter block | Strip entire line |
| Bare placeholder tag | YAML tag value exactly 📝, 🌱, or 📝/🌱 | Remove if note has other useful tags; else leave |
| Null tag | YAML tag value literally null | Remove list entry |
| Templater leak | <% tp\. or \{\{title\}\} or \{\{date\}\} | Replace {{title}} with filename stem; strip <% tp.* %> |
| Corrupt emoji | Tag contains Unicode replacement char \ufffd | Flag for manual fix — don't guess |
| Missing work context | File under the work namespace (e.g. work/) without context: work | Add the line |
Edit Recipes
Strip legacy id
Before:
---
id: 20240118235900
tags: [🛠️/neovim]
---
After:
---
tags: [🛠️/neovim]
---
Remove bare placeholder (keeping useful tags)
Before:
tags:
- 📝
- 🛠️/ansible
After:
tags:
- 🛠️/ansible
Legacy MOC tag → current
Before:
tags:
- 🗺️
After:
tags:
- 📝/moc
Edit Pattern
Use Edit with small targeted old_string / new_string replacements that preserve exact indentation. Never rewrite whole files when a line edit suffices — it minimizes the commit diff and makes reviews easy.
For bulk fixes across many files, drive from a script that emits one Edit call per file rather than running sed in Bash. The commit-per-category pattern (fix(tags): strip bare 📝 from 639 notes) relies on keeping all edits in one logical batch.
Safety
- Never write to
.obsidian/,.claude/,.git/,Files/. The safety hook enforces this. - Never add frontmatter to daily notes in
Notes/orwork/notes/without verifying — they often don't need any. - When in doubt about what a placeholder tag meant, leave the note unchanged and report it rather than guess.
Related Skills
- properties — runtime property ops via Obsidian CLI (requires running Obsidian)
- vault-tags — tag taxonomy consolidation rules
- vault-templates — Templater convention reference