Obsidian Web Clipper Templates

Obsidian Web Clipper is a browser extension that saves web content to an Obsidian vault as Markdown notes. Templates define how pages are captured — what metadata to extract, how to format the note, and which sites to auto-match.

Templates are configured as JSON. Users can import/export individual templates or full settings backups. When generating templates, output valid JSON the user can import directly.

Single-page scope. A clip only sees the page it fired on — the DOM loaded in the active tab. The extension is not an agent; it can't crawl, follow links, or visit other URLs. Selector, schema, and interpreter variables all resolve against that one page. If a template needs data spread across multiple pages, it can't gather it in one clip — design around what's on the page being clipped.

Caution: full settings exports contain interpreter API keys in plaintext (interpreter_settings.providers[].apiKey). Never quote them; flag exports stored in version control.

Adapt to the user's vault conventions

Templates hold opinionated conventions for folder layout, frontmatter property names, category/tag conventions, and note body structure. Match the user's existing conventions rather than inventing.

Before drafting a template, understand:

• Vault-level docs (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, READMEs)
• An existing templates folder, sample notes of the type being clipped, or a previously exported clipper settings file
• Any YAML property-sort configuration (Linter or similar)
• User preferences uncovered in discussion

When conventions aren't discoverable or if the user isn't sure what they want, tailor what you can and fall back to minimal vendor-neutral choices. Flag any assumptions you've made so the user can adjust before import.

If the vault has a property sort order, mirror that order in the template's properties array.

Template syntax

For JSON fields, behaviors, variables, filters, logic, properties, and triggers, read references/template-syntax.md. Keep its tested filter and escaping gotchas exact.

Examples and prompt adaptation

Read references/article-template.md when the user needs a complete importable example or is adapting AI prompts into interpreter variables.

Validating before delivery

Template parse errors are silent until the user tries to import — and the import error is often laconic ("Unexpected character 'X' in template" with a line number pointing at the JSON, not the template body). Before declaring a template done:

• Mentally walk through every map, template, and replace chain for the gotchas above.
• If the user has access to the extension, ask them to test-import the JSON before iterating further on the body or properties — a clean import is the fastest signal that filter syntax is valid.
• If iterating with the user on a working template, ship one change at a time so a reintroduced parse error is easy to attribute.

Reference

For exhaustive filter signatures, the full preset variable list, schema variable edge cases, and anything not covered above, fetch the live docs. Two source-of-truth locations:

• The clipper repo's docs/ (e.g. obsidianmd/obsidian-clipper, look for docs/Filters.md, docs/Variables.md, docs/Templates.md, docs/Logic.md, docs/Interpret web pages.md)
• The official Obsidian help docs' Web Clipper section (e.g. obsidianmd/obsidian-help)

Canonical human-facing docs: https://obsidian.md/help/web-clipper (subpages /filters, /logic, etc.). These are JS-rendered; a plain fetch returns an empty shell. Link users there, but read from GitHub.

Use whatever retrieval tool fits — context7, WebFetch, direct GitHub raw URLs, or anything else. Pick the one that's faster or more accurate in the moment. Prefer the live docs over guessing from memory.