Properties and tags#

Frontmatter#

A note can open with a YAML block, which Obsidian calls properties:

---
aliases:
  - JSON spec
  - RFC 8259
tags:
  - reference
  - standards
source: "[[Paper]]"
created: 2026-10-17
done: true
---

# The note starts here

Frontmatter is only recognized on line 1. A --- block further down the note is a horizontal rule and a paragraph, not properties. A byte-order mark before it is tolerated, and so are CRLF line endings.

In reading view, frontmatter renders as a properties block at the top of the note. Scoria reads the whole block, and the keys it gives special meaning to are:

Every other key is kept and available to property searches — [status:done], [created:>2026-01-01].

Links in properties are real links. source: "[[Paper]]" produces a backlink in Paper and an edge in the graph. When Paper is renamed, Scoria rewrites the link text in place and leaves the rest of your YAML bytes untouched.

Tags#

A tag can be written two ways, and they mean the same thing:

---
tags:
  - project/scoria
  - reference
---

Inline, anywhere in the body: #project/scoria #reference

In the tags property, the # is optional, and the value may be a YAML list or a comma-separated string (tags: project, reference). Both shapes are accepted.

The Tags pane merges the two sources case-insensitively, so #Project, #project and tags: [project] are one tag with a count of three.

What counts as a tag#

The rules are precise, because # is also a heading marker and appears in URLs. Scoria matches Obsidian's observed behavior:

• A tag needs at least one non-numeric character. #2026 is not a tag; #q4-2026 is.
• # Heading is not a tag — the space settles it.
• A # after an alphanumeric character is not a tag: the #section in page#section is part of the word.
• A # right after whitespace starts a tag. So does a # right after another inline construct: [[link]]#tag, `code`#tag, **bold**#tag, and #a#b all produce tags.
• A # after ( does not start a tag.
• Tags may contain emoji and any non-ASCII letters.

Nested tags#

#project/scoria is a nested tag. It is listed as itself in the Tags pane, and a search for tag:#project matches it, because a search for a parent tag matches its children. See search syntax.

Next#

• Block ids and footnotes