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Note Templates

Foam supports note templates which let you customize the starting content of your notes instead of always starting from an empty note.

Note templates are .md files located in the special .foam/templates directory of your workspace.

Quickstart

Create a template:

  • Run the Foam: Create New Template command from the command palette
  • OR manually create a regular .md file in the .foam/templates directory

Create new template GIF

Theme: Ayu Light

To create a note from a template:

  • Run the Foam: Create New Note From Template command and follow the instructions. Don't worry if you've not created a template yet! You'll be prompted to create a new template if none exist.
  • OR run the Foam: Create New Note command, which uses the special default template (.foam/templates/new-note.md, if it exists)

Create new note from template GIF

Theme: Ayu Light

Special templates

Default template

The .foam/templates/new-note.md template is special in that it is the template that will be used by the Foam: Create New Note command. Customize this template to contain content that you want included every time you create a note. To begin it is recommended to define the YAML Front-Matter of the template similar to the following:

---
type: basic-note
---

Default daily note template

The .foam/templates/daily-note.md template is special in that it is the template that will be used when creating daily notes (e.g. by using Foam: Open Daily Note). Customize this template to contain content that you want included every time you create a daily note. To begin it is recommended to define the YAML Front-Matter of the template similar to the following:

---
type: daily-note
---

Variables

Templates can use all the variables available in VS Code Snippets.

In addition, you can also use variables provided by Foam:

Name Description
FOAM_SELECTED_TEXT Foam will fill it with selected text when creating a new note, if any text is selected. Selected text will be replaced with a wikilink to the new
FOAM_TITLE The title of the note. If used, Foam will prompt you to enter a title for the note.
FOAM_TITLE_SAFE The title of the note in a file system safe format. If used, Foam will prompt you to enter a title for the note unless FOAM_TITLE has already caused the prompt.
FOAM_SLUG The sluggified title of the note (using the default github slug method). If used, Foam will prompt you to enter a title for the note unless FOAM_TITLE has already caused the prompt.
FOAM_DATE_* FOAM_DATE_YEAR, FOAM_DATE_MONTH, FOAM_DATE_WEEK etc. Foam-specific versions of VS Code's datetime snippet variables. Prefer these versions over VS Code's.

FOAM_DATE_* variables

Foam defines its own set of datetime variables that have a similar behaviour as VS Code's datetime snippet variables.

For example, FOAM_DATE_YEAR has the same behaviour as VS Code's CURRENT_YEAR, FOAM_DATE_SECONDS_UNIX has the same behaviour as CURRENT_SECONDS_UNIX, etc.

By default, prefer using the FOAM_DATE_ versions. The datetime used to compute the values will be the same for both FOAM_DATE_ and VS Code's variables, with the exception of the creation notes using the daily note template.

For more nitty-gritty details about the supported date formats, see here.

Relative daily notes

When referring to daily notes, you can use the relative snippets (/+1d, /tomorrow, etc.). In these cases, the new notes will be created with the daily note template, but the datetime used should be the relative datetime, not the current datetime. By using the FOAM_DATE_ versions of the variables, the correct relative date will populate the variables, instead of the current datetime.

For example, given this daily note template (.foam/templates/daily-note.md):

# $FOAM_DATE_YEAR-$FOAM_DATE_MONTH-$FOAM_DATE_DATE

## Here's what I'm going to do today

* Thing 1
* Thing 2

When the /tomorrow snippet is used, FOAM_DATE_ variables will be populated with tomorrow's date, as expected. If instead you were to use the VS Code versions of these variables, they would be populated with today's date, not tomorrow's, causing unexpected behaviour.

When creating notes in any other scenario, the FOAM_DATE_ values are computed using the same datetime as the VS Code ones, so the FOAM_DATE_ versions can be used in all scenarios by default.

Metadata

Templates can also contain metadata about the templates themselves. The metadata is defined in YAML "Frontmatter" blocks within the templates.

Name Description
filepath The filepath to use when creating the new note. If the filepath is a relative filepath, it is relative to the current workspace.
name A human readable name to show in the template picker.
description A human readable description to show in the template picker.

Foam-specific variables (e.g. $FOAM_TITLE) can be used within template metadata. However, VS Code snippet variables are (currently) not supported.

filepath attribute

The filepath metadata attribute allows you to define a relative or absolute filepath to use when creating a note using the template. If the filepath is a relative filepath, it is relative to the current workspace.

Example of relative filepath

For example, filepath can be used to customize .foam/templates/new-note.md, overriding the default Foam: Create New Note behaviour of opening the file in the same directory as the active file:

---
# This will create the note in the "journal" subdirectory of the current workspace,
# regardless of which file is the active file.
foam_template:
  filepath: 'journal/$FOAM_TITLE.md'
---

Example of absolute filepath

filepath can be an absolute filepath, so that the notes get created in the same location, regardless of which file or workspace the editor currently has open. The format of an absolute filepath may vary depending on the filesystem used.

---
foam_template:
  # Unix / MacOS filesystems
  filepath: '/Users/john.smith/foam/journal/$FOAM_TITLE.md'

  # Windows filesystems
  filepath: 'C:\Users\john.smith\Documents\foam\journal\$FOAM_TITLE.md'
---

Example of date-based filepath

It is possible to vary the filepath value based on the current date using the FOAM_DATE_* variables. This is especially useful for the [daily-notes] template if you wish to organize by years, months, etc. Below is an example of a daily-note template metadata section that will create new daily notes under the journal/YEAR/MONTH-MONTH_NAME/ filepath. For example, when a note is created on November 15, 2022, a new file will be created at C:\Users\foam_user\foam_notes\journal\2022\11-Nov\2022-11-15-daily-note.md. This method also respects the creation of daily notes relative to the current date (i.e. /+1d).

---
type: daily-note
foam_template:
    description: Daily Note for $FOAM_TITLE
    filepath: "C:\\Users\\foam_user\\foam_notes\\journal\\$FOAM_DATE_YEAR\\$FOAM_DATE_MONTH-$FOAM_DATE_MONTH_NAME_SHORT\\$FOAM_DATE_YEAR-$FOAM_DATE_MONTH-$FOAM_DATE_DATE-daily-note.md"
---
# $FOAM_DATE_YEAR-$FOAM_DATE_MONTH-$FOAM_DATE_DATE Daily Notes

Note: this method requires the use of absolute file paths, and in this example is using Windows path conventions. This method will also override any filename formatting defined in .vscode/settings.json

name and description attributes

These attributes provide a human readable name and description to be shown in the template picker (e.g. When a user uses the Foam: Create New Note From Template command):

Template Picker annotated with attributes

Adding template metadata to an existing YAML Frontmatter block

If your template already has a YAML Frontmatter block, you can add the Foam template metadata to it.

Limitations

Foam only supports adding the template metadata to YAML Frontmatter blocks. If the existing Frontmatter block uses some other format (e.g. JSON), you will have to add the template metadata to its own YAML Frontmatter block.

Further, the template metadata must be provided as a YAML block mapping, with the attributes placed on the lines immediately following the foam_template line:

---
existing_frontmatter: "Existing Frontmatter block"
foam_template: # this is a YAML "Block" mapping ("Flow" mappings aren't supported)
  name: My Note Template # Attributes must be on the lines immediately following `foam_template`
  description: This is my note template
  filepath: `journal/$FOAM_TITLE.md`
---
This is the rest of the template

Due to the technical limitations of parsing the complex YAML format, unless the metadata is provided this specific form, Foam is unable to correctly remove the template metadata before creating the resulting note.

If this limitation proves inconvenient to you, please let us know. We may be able to extend our parsing capabilities to cover your use case. In the meantime, you can add the template metadata without this limitation by providing it in its own YAML Frontmatter block.

Adding template metadata to its own YAML Frontmatter block

You can add the template metadata to its own YAML Frontmatter block at the start of the template:

---
foam_template:
  name: My Note Template
  description: This is my note template
  filepath: 'journal/$FOAM_TITLE.md'
---
This is the rest of the template

If the note already has a Frontmatter block, a Foam-specific Frontmatter block can be added to the start of the template. The Foam-specific Frontmatter block must always be placed at the very beginning of the file, and only whitespace can separate the two Frontmatter blocks.

---
foam_template:
  name: My Note Template
  description: This is my note template
  filepath: 'journal/$FOAM_TITLE.md'
---

---
existing_frontmatter: "Existing Frontmatter block"
---
This is the rest of the template