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Daily Notes NG Daily Notes NG Daily Notes NG

Glossary

Core concepts

Journal (journal definition)

A named destination for periodic notes. Each journal has a name, periodicity, folder, date format, template, and scope. A vault can have many journals — “Personal”, “Work standup”, “HQ bulletin”, etc. See journals.

Periodicity

One of five time granularities: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Each journal has exactly one periodicity.

Periodic note

A note created for a specific date in a specific journal. For example, 2026-03-24.md in the “Personal” journal. The filename is derived from the journal’s Moment.js format string.

Journal scope

Determines who can see and use a journal. Three levels:

  • Global — available to everyone in the vault (no identity system needed)
  • Person — only visible to the person registered on this device
  • Group — visible to all members of a group note

See scopes.

Journal picker

A fuzzy search modal that appears when multiple journals share the same periodicity. For example, if you have three daily journals, “Open today’s daily note” shows a picker to choose which one.

Identity system

Device ID

A UUID v4 generated once per Obsidian installation and stored in localStorage (never synced). Uniquely identifies this device so the plugin knows who is using the vault. See multi-user identity.

Person note

A markdown note with type: person in its frontmatter. Represents a human user of the vault. Person notes can contain per-person journal overrides.

---
type: person
title: Alice Smith
timezone: America/New_York
---

Group note

A markdown note with type: group in its frontmatter. Contains a members list of wikilinks to person notes or other group notes. Groups are resolved recursively with cycle detection (max depth 10).

---
type: group
title: Dev Team
members:
  - "[[Alice Smith]]"
  - "[[Bob Jones]]"
---

Device-to-user mapping

A record linking a device ID to a person note path. Stored in plugin settings (synced). Created when you “register” a device in identity settings.

Journal resolver

The component that filters the vault’s journal list to show only those available to the current device/user. Global journals are always available. Person/group journals are filtered by ownership.

Person interpolation

The {{person}} placeholder in folder paths, resolved at runtime to the current user’s display name. For example, Journal/{{person}}/Daily becomes Journal/Alice Smith/Daily.

Creator attribution

Automatic insertion of a frontmatter field (default: creator) linking to the current user’s person note when a new periodic note is created.

Note UUID

A stable UUID v4 stored in a note’s frontmatter (default property: dnngId). Survives file renames and moves.

Template system

Template context

The set of variables available for substitution in templates. Built-in: {{title}}, {{date}}, {{time}}, {{person}}.

Templater bridge

The integration layer that detects Templater and delegates template processing when its “Trigger on new file creation” setting is enabled. Falls back to the built-in engine otherwise.

Folder notes

Folder note

A note that represents a folder. Clicking the folder in the file explorer opens the note. Requires Folder Notes plugin.

Folder-note mode

A setting that changes how periodic notes are stored. When on, each note becomes a folder for attachment nesting:

  • Off: Journal/Daily/2026-03-24.md
  • On: Journal/Daily/2026-03-24/2026-03-24.md

See folder notes guide.

Periodic index (.base MOC)

A .base file auto-generated at the root of each journal folder. Acts as a dashboard. Uses file.inFolder(this.file.folder) for portability.

Fallback path resolution

Checks both flat and folder-note paths when looking for notes. Ensures notes created in one mode are found after toggling.

Companion plugins

Folder Notes plugin

LostPaul’s Folder Notes — click-to-open folder notes. Supports .base files since v1.8.17. Keep Auto create OFF with Daily Notes NG. See guide.

Templater

SilentVoid13’s Templater — advanced <% %> template syntax. Daily Notes NG delegates to it when “Trigger on new file creation” is on.

Dataview

Blacksmithgu’s Dataview — query language for notes. Sees all periodic notes regardless of storage mode.

Testing

Test vault

The dnng-test-vault/ directory. Contains plugin build output and sample data for testing.

Test fixtures plugin

Separate companion plugin (daily-notes-ng-test-fixtures) that generates and cleans up test data via commands. See test fixtures.

Obsidian CLI

Official Obsidian CLI (v1.12+). Used for automated testing: reloading plugins, executing commands, inspecting state, taking screenshots. See testing workflow.