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Limestone vault conventions

When to use

Read this before creating or editing any note in a Limestone vault. It explains how a plain folder of Markdown files becomes a structured, queryable notebook.

Files-as-truth (the one rule that matters)

A note's facts live in its .md frontmatter, not in a database. Limestone's SQLite index is rebuilt from the files on every read. So: any valid .md you write into the vault becomes a note, and it appears in the app automatically. To create or edit a note, just write the file — no API call is required.

The vault is a valid Obsidian vault and follows Obsidian Properties / Dataview conventions.

Frontmatter schema

Frontmatter is YAML between --- fences at the top of the file. Use native YAML types (strings, numbers, booleans, dates, lists).

Reserved, app-managed keys:

  • limestone_id — the note's stable identity (a UUID). Leave it alone; Limestone assigns it. A note you create without one is given an id on first index.
  • limestone_type — the kind of note (usually note).
  • title — the human title (falls back to the filename stem if absent).
  • icon, cover — optional display tokens.
  • tags — a YAML list of tag names, e.g. tags: [assay, pichia].
  • links — app-managed outgoing links; prefer editing links as wikilinks.

Any other key you add is a free-form property (surfaced as extra) unless the note's collection defines a typed column with that name (see working-with-collections).

  • Tags: a list under tags:.
  • Links / relations / file references: Obsidian [[wikilinks]]. A relation or a vault_file reference is stored in frontmatter as a [[wikilink]] to the target note or asset (by filename stem). Backlinks are computed for you.

Layout

  • Each collection is a top-level folder; the notes inside it are its rows.
  • An attached file lives in its note's own folder, beside the note's .md (ADR-0037, ADR-0072). Attach with limestone_attach_file rather than placing bytes yourself — where the file goes is the tool's decision and it has changed before (see attaching-a-file).
  • Limestone's own data lives under .limestone/ — never edit or write there.

Example note

---
title: Assay 05
limestone_type: note
tags: [assay, pichia]
Status: Reading
---

Growth assay notes go in the body.