Templater Convention & Drift Repair

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when...	Use the alternative instead when...
Repairing unrendered `<% tp.file.cursor() %>` / `{{title}}` markers committed in note bodies	Stripping the same kind of markers inside YAML frontmatter — use `vault-frontmatter`
Auditing daily-note structure drift against the canonical Templater template	Creating new daily notes interactively via the running CLI — use `vault-files`
Fixing notes committed before Templater finished rendering	Reconnecting the cleaned-up notes into a hub afterwards — use `vault-mocs`

Obsidian's Templater plugin renders placeholder syntax when a new note is created. When rendering fails (plugin error, user dismissal, manual copy-paste), the literal markers get committed and persist. Fixing them is mechanical.

Unrendered Markers

Marker	Meaning	Fix
`<% tp.file.cursor(N) %>`	Cursor position placeholder	Strip the entire tag
`<% tp.file.title %>`	Filename stem	Replace with actual filename (no `.md`)
`<% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %>`	Today's date	Replace with the creation date from frontmatter, or the filename date for daily notes
`{{title}}`	Filename stem (legacy)	Replace with filename stem
`{{date}}`	Today's date (legacy)	Same as above
`<% await tp.system.prompt(...) %>`	User prompt	Strip; requires user to refill

Detection

# Find any Templater leak
rg '<%\s*tp\.' --glob '*.md'
rg '\{\{title\}\}|\{\{date\}\}' --glob '*.md'

Fixing `<% tp.file.cursor(1) %>`

Before:

---
tags: [📝/notes]
---

<% tp.file.cursor(1) %>

After:

---
tags: [📝/notes]
---

Use Edit with old_string='\n\n<% tp.file.cursor(1) %>' and new_string='' (or adjust for trailing whitespace) — the cursor marker never has meaningful content around it.

Fixing `{{title}}` in daily notes

Before (file work/notes/2025-03-26.md):

# {{title}}

## Log

After:

# 2025-03-26

## Log

Use the filename stem (no .md). Don't replace {{title}} inside code blocks or quoted text — only in headings / body.

Canonical Template Files

The templates themselves live in Templates/ and should contain raw Templater syntax — never "fix" them. Only fix notes outside Templates/.

Template	Produces	Sections
`Daily.md`	`Notes/YYYY-MM-DD.md`	Quick Links, Today's Focus, Work, Personal, Tomorrow's Prep, Navigation
`MOC.md`	`Zettelkasten/{Subject} MOC.md`	Title heading + sections
`New.md`	general Zettelkasten notes	Frontmatter + body stub
`Work Daily.md`	`work/notes/YYYY-MM-DD.md`	Log, Thoughts, Discoveries, Todo, Recurring reminders

Daily Note Structure Drift

Personal daily notes created before 2025 usually lack ## Navigation and ## Tomorrow's Prep. Two remediation options:

Retrofit template — add the missing sections to every old daily note. Usually not worth the diff; users rarely look at old daily notes.
Leave as-is — document the change boundary in a single commit message and let old notes age.

Default to #2 unless the user specifically asks for retrofit.

Work Daily Note Drift

Work-namespace daily notes that contain literal {{title}} in the heading — fix these.

Safety

Never edit Templates/*.md when fixing leakage — templates are supposed to contain Templater syntax.
Never run a blanket sed -i 's/{{title}}/.../' — always use file-specific Edit calls so the title derivation is correct per file.
When you encounter <% tp.system.prompt(...) %>, don't guess the answer — flag for user.

Related Skills

vault-frontmatter — YAML-level fixes
vault-files — daily-note operations via Obsidian CLI

vault-templates