Depends

Manage file dependencies for better graph viewing.

What it does

Declare relationships between notes by id in frontmatter, and Depends writes real [[wikilinks]] into managed sections of each note. The native Obsidian graph view picks up those edges automatically. The user only types ids. Depends resolves them to filenames, so renaming a note does not break the graph.

Frontmatter example

---
id: ini1
solved: true
dependencies: [ini0]
dependents: [ini2, ini3]
---

The plugin maintains two sections in the note:

# Depends on
- [[intro]]

# Dependents
- [[advanced]]
- [[expert]]

You do not have to add the headings yourself. They appear (and disappear) as soon as the relationships are present (or removed).

Settings

Setting	Default	Notes
Mode	auto	auto rewrites sections whenever frontmatter changes. manual only writes when you run a command. The index stays current in both modes.
Id field	id	Frontmatter key holding each note's unique id.
Dependencies field	dependencies	Ids this note depends on.
Dependents field	dependents	Ids that depend on this note (declared).
Gate field	empty	Optional. Set to a frontmatter key (such as solved); when that key is present and falsy, both managed sections are removed. Leave blank to disable gating.
Render dependencies	on	Toggle the upstream direction.
Render dependents	on	Toggle the inverse direction.
Dependents source	both	declared, inferred, or both. Inferred dependents come from inverting every other note's dependencies.
Depends on heading	# Depends on	Heading line for the upstream section. Any heading level (#..######) works.
Dependents heading	# Dependents	Heading line for the inverse section.
Include / exclude folders	empty	Empty include means the whole vault is in scope. Exclude wins over include.

A managed section owns its heading plus the contiguous bullet lines beneath it. Anything that is neither a bullet nor a blank line ends the section, so prose written after the bullets is preserved.

Commands

• Depends: Register dependencies for all files
• Depends: Register dependencies for current file
• Depends: Show index stats

In manual mode these commands are how you ask Depends to write. In auto mode you rarely need them, but they remain useful for forcing a refresh.

Install

From the community plugin directory

Once Depends is published, install it from inside Obsidian via Settings, Community plugins, Browse. Search for "Depends", install, and enable.

Manually from a release

1. Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest release.
2. Drop them into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/depends/.
3. Reload Obsidian and enable "Depends" under Community plugins.

From source (for local development)

1. Run npm install.
2. Run npm run build. This produces main.js next to manifest.json.
3. Run scripts/install.sh vaults verbose to pick a vault interactively, or scripts/install.sh install <vault-name> to target one directly.
4. Reload Obsidian and enable "Depends" under Community plugins.

For development, npm run dev will watch and rebuild on save.

Develop

• npm run build produces a single main.js.
• npm test runs the test suite (Vitest).
• npm run typecheck runs TypeScript with no emit.

License

MIT