Workholic

Show status, title, date, and category from frontmatter in the file explorer, and sort files by status, date, category, and title.

Add a status property to a note's frontmatter and Workholic marks it in the file explorer:

---
status: IN_PROGRESS
---

Statuses

BACKLOG → READY → IN_PROGRESS → IN_REVIEW → DONE

Values are matched loosely, so in progress, In-Progress, and IN_PROGRESS all resolve to the same status. Anything unrecognized is treated as having no status.

Setting a status

You don't have to remember the values or type them. A status picker is available from two places:

• Right-click a file in the file explorer → Set status
• Command palette → Workholic: Set status (assign a hotkey if you use it often)

Select several files first and the picker applies the status to all of them at once. The picker also offers Clear status, which removes the property.

Typing the value by hand still works, of course.

Features

Status indicators. Files with a status are marked in the file explorer. Four presets are available:

The icons are inline SVG masks rather than font glyphs, so they render identically on desktop and mobile instead of depending on font coverage. Shape carries the status on its own, which keeps the indicators readable without relying on color alone.

Colors come from Obsidian's theme variables, so they follow your theme in both light and dark mode.

Dim completed files. Files marked DONE fade back so unfinished work stands out. On by default.

Sort by status. Files are grouped by status in the file explorer. Your existing sort order (name, modified time, …) is preserved within each status group, and files without a status go last. Folders keep their positions.

Labels from frontmatter. Files are listed in the file explorer as day category title, built from the note's properties:

---
title: Quarterly planning
date: 2026-11-11
category: Planning
---

shows as 11 Planning Quarterly planning.

• Title replaces the file name. Hover the row to see the real file name.
• Day is the day of the month from date, always two digits (05, 11). Date and datetime values both work.
• Category is shown as a small badge. A list of categories is joined with commas, and links such as [[Planning]] show their name.

Each part appears only when the note has it, so a note with nothing but a title shows just the title, and a note with none of them shows its file name as before. Each part can be turned off in settings.

Renaming from the file explorer (F2, or Rename… in the context menu) still edits the real file name, never the title.

Sort by date, category, and title. When the file explorer is sorted by name (A to Z or Z to A), files are ordered by what you see instead of their file name: by date first (while days are shown), then by category (while categories are shown), then by title. Files without a date or category follow the ones that have it in both directions. With Sort by status on, status still comes first. Sorting by modified or created time is unaffected.

Settings

Customizing colors

Override the palette in a CSS snippet:

.theme-light,
.theme-dark {
  --workholic-color-backlog: var(--text-faint);
  --workholic-color-ready: var(--color-blue);
  --workholic-color-in-progress: var(--color-yellow);
  --workholic-color-in-review: var(--color-purple);
  --workholic-color-done: var(--color-green);
  
  --workholic-icon-size: 0.95em;
  --workholic-bar-width: 3px;
  --workholic-done-opacity: 0.5;

  --workholic-day-color: var(--text-faint);
  --workholic-category-color: var(--text-muted);
  --workholic-category-background: var(--background-modifier-hover);
}

To swap an icon, override --workholic-icon on the matching status:

.nav-file-title[data-workholic-status='IN_PROGRESS'] {
  --workholic-icon: url("data:image/svg+xml,...");
}

Caveats

Sorting is per folder. The file explorer sorts each folder independently, so statuses group within a folder rather than across the whole vault. For a vault-wide status board, use a Base with group by status.

Sorting and labels rely on an internal API. Obsidian does not expose the file explorer to plugins, so these features hook internal methods. They are feature-detected and fail safe: if a future Obsidian release changes those methods, sorting reverts to the default order, files show their file names again, and the status indicators keep working. Indicators themselves use only public API and CSS.

Labels show only in the file explorer. Tabs, search, the quick switcher, and links still use the file name.

Hover has no equivalent on mobile. Tapping opens the note as usual, so the real file name is not shown there.

Indicators are DOM-driven. The file explorer virtualizes its rows, so Workholic watches it with a MutationObserver and stamps each row with a data-workholic-status attribute. All styling is static CSS keyed off that attribute, so the cost does not grow with vault size.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # watch build
npm run build   # type-check and production build
npm run lint

License

MIT