description: A YAML block at the top of a page that sets page-level attributes. status: Complete tags: glossary references:

• client/codemirror/frontmatter.ts
• client/codemirror/frontmatter_folding.ts
• plugs/index/frontmatter.ts

Frontmatter is a common format to attach additional metadata (data about data) to markdown documents. Many tools support it as a markdown Markdown/Extensions|extension.

In SilverBullet, there are multiple ways to attach Metadata to a page; frontmatter is the most popular one.

You create frontmatter by starting your markdown document with --- followed by YAML encoded attributes and then ending with --- again. Followed by the regular body of your document. This very page contains some frontmatter, click on it to see the underlying code.

Here is another example:

---
status: Draft
tags:
- tag1
- tag2
seeAlso: "[YAML](YAML)"
---
## This is a section
This is content

For convenience, you may use the attribute.subAttribute notation, which internally will expand:

attribute.subAttribute: 10

to

attribute:
   subAttribute: 10

Folding

Frontmatter can be folded in the editor. By default, frontmatter blocks with more than 5 lines fold automatically when you open a page, unless your cursor or selection is inside the frontmatter. When folded, frontmatter with a tags key previews those tags as tag chips.

You can configure this in your CONFIG page with frontmatterFolding:

Never auto-fold frontmatter:

config.set("frontmatterFolding", {
  foldByDefault = "never",
})

Always auto-fold frontmatter:

config.set("frontmatterFolding", {
  foldByDefault = "always",
})

Only auto-fold frontmatter above a custom line threshold:

config.set("frontmatterFolding", {
  foldByDefault = "long",
  foldByDefaultLines = 10,
})

Special attributes

While SilverBullet allows arbitrary metadata to be added to pages, there are a few attributes with special meaning:

• name (==DISALLOWED==): is an attribute used for page names, you should not set it.
• displayName (string): very similar in effect as aliases but will use this name for the page in certain contexts.
• aliases (array of strings): allow you to specify a list of alternative names for this page, which can be used to navigate or link to this page
• tags (array of strings or string): an alternative (and perhaps preferred) way to assign Tag to a page. There are various ways to define these:

  tags: tag1, tag2 # with commas
  tags: tag1 tag2 # with spaces
  tags: "#tag1 #tag2" # with pound signs and quotes (with auto completion)
  tags: # as a list
  - tag1
  - tag2
  tags: # as a list with pound signs and quotes
  - "#tag1"
  - "#tag2"
  

note Recommended style Prefer space-separated bare words on a single line — tags: market competitors — over the YAML-list form. It is the most common SilverBullet convention and the least visually noisy. All the forms above remain valid for compatibility. If you care about Obsidian compatibility, use YAML lists.

For specific use cases, like [^Library/Std/Infrastructure/Page Templates](^Library/Std/Infrastructure/Page Templates) or [^Library/Std/Infrastructure/Slash Templates](^Library/Std/Infrastructure/Slash Templates), frontmatter may have specific meaning.