Daily Note Structure

This plugin automates the creation of a folder and file structure for daily notes. If your daily notes are just individual markdown files in a single folder, you do not need this plugin.

The purpose of this plugin is to simplify and automate the daily creation of multiple folders and files for daily notes.

Recommended Plugins

For best results, consider installing the following Obsidian plugins:

• Templater by SilentVoid Use this to automatically generate folder and file content.

• Folder Notes by Lost Paul Use this to display default notes when clicking on folders.

Date/Time Format Patterns

For compatibility, Daily Note Structure uses moment.js formats. All standard moment.js formats are available.

Additionally, the following custom formats are supported:

These formats are useful for grouping daily notes of a week in the same folder.

Format Errors

Evaluation errors for invalid patterns can be found in Obsidian’s developer console (Shift+Ctrl+I). Note: Not all invalid patterns throw an error; some may return unexpected results silently.

Folder Structure

export interface FolderStructure {
  type: "folder" | "file";
  namepattern: string;
  template?: string;
  description?: string;
  children?: FolderStructure[];
}

Use the FolderStructure interface to configure your folder/file structure in the plugin’s settings page. The structure is an array of FolderStructure objects:

[
  {
    "type": "folder",
    "namepattern": "{{YYYY}}",
    "template": "Plugins/Templater/Templates/yearly_folder_note_template.md",
    "description": "yearly folder base",
    "children": [
      {
        "type": "folder",
        "namepattern": "{{MMOW}} - {{MMM}} {{YYYY}}",
        "template": null,
        "description": "folder matching the month for the first day in the week",
        "children": [
          {
            "type": "folder",
            "namepattern": "KW {{WW}} ({{MMM}} {{YYYY}})",
            "template": null,
            "description": "folder matching the year’s week",
            "children": [
              {
                "type": "file",
                "namepattern": "{{YYYY}}-{{MM}}-{{DD}}",
                "template": "Plugins/Templater/Templates/daily_template.md"
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
]

Note on file extensions

File extensions are not added implicitly. A file will only have an extension if it is explicitly included in the namepattern (for example {{YYYY}}-{{MM}}-{{DD}}.md).

In the example above, the generated file will be named YYYY-MM-DD without a .md suffix unless the suffix is part of the pattern.

Properties

type {string} – required Must be "folder" or "file".

namepattern {string} – required A string containing characters and patterns. Patterns must follow {{<pattern>}}, where <pattern> is a valid moment.js format.

File name patterns are resolved verbatim. No file extension is added automatically.

If a generated file is expected to be a Markdown note, the .md suffix must be explicitly included in the namepattern (e.g. {{YYYY}}-{{MM}}-{{DD}}.md).

Do not combine patterns inline (e.g., {{YYYY-MM-DD}}). Use {{YYYY}}-{{MM}}-{{DD}} instead.

template {string} – optional Path to a markdown file used as a template.

• For type: "file", the generated file’s content will match the template.

• For type: "folder", a folder note is created only if a template is specified. The folder note will be created inside the folder, containing the template content. In this case, the folder note is always a Markdown file (.md).

  The file name is derived directly from the folder name; both the file name and the .md suffix are implicit and not configurable.

  For best results, install a folder note plugin.

description {string} – optional Optional description of the folder or file. Currently not used by the plugin.

children {Array} – optional Array of child FolderStructure nodes. Only applicable for folders. Ignored if specified on a file.