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.
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
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)
Theme: Ayu Light
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
---
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
---
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 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.
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.
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. $FOAM_TITLE
) can be used within template metadata. However, VS Code snippet variables are (currently) not supported.
The filepath
metadata attribute allows you to define a relative or absolute filepath to use when creating a note using the template. If the filepath is a relative filepath, it is relative to the current workspace.
For example, filepath
can be used to customize .foam/templates/new-note.md
, overriding the default Foam: Create New Note
behaviour of opening the file in the same directory as the active file:
---
# This will create the note in the "journal" subdirectory of the current workspace,
# regardless of which file is the active file.
foam_template:
filepath: 'journal/$FOAM_TITLE.md'
---
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'
---
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-$FOAM_DATE_DATE Daily Notes
Note: this method requires the use of absolute file paths, and in this example is using Windows path conventions. This method will also override any filename formatting defined in
.vscode/settings.json
These attributes provide a human readable name and description to be shown in the template picker (e.g. When a user uses the Foam: Create New Note From Template
command):
If your template already has a YAML Frontmatter block, you can add the Foam template metadata to it.
Foam only supports adding the template metadata to YAML Frontmatter blocks. If the existing Frontmatter block uses some other format (e.g. JSON), you will have to add the template metadata to its own YAML Frontmatter block.
Further, the template metadata must be provided as a YAML block mapping, with the attributes placed on the lines immediately following the foam_template
line:
---
existing_frontmatter: "Existing Frontmatter block"
foam_template: # this is a YAML "Block" mapping ("Flow" mappings aren't supported)
name: My Note Template # Attributes must be on the lines immediately following `foam_template`
description: This is my note template
filepath: `journal/$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.
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