Folder Tags

Folder Tags automatically adds YAML frontmatter tags to Markdown notes based on their vault-relative paths. It can run when a new note is created or be invoked manually for an existing note, folder, or the entire vault.

Settings and rules

The plugin has two global settings:

• Enable plugin turns all automatic and manual processing on or off;
• Apply automatically applies matching rules when a Markdown file is created.

Each rule contains a name, an enabled switch, a pattern, a matching mode, and one or more comma-separated tags. Every enabled rule that matches the full file path is applied, so one note can receive tags from several rules.

Regex

Regex patterns use JavaScript regular expression syntax. Named and positional capture groups can be used in tag values:

Pattern: ^courses/(?<course>[^/]+)/(?<topic>[^/]+)/notes/
Mode: Regex
Tags: course-{course}, topic-{topic}, note-{1}

For courses/linux/networking/notes/firewall.md, this produces:

course-linux, topic-networking, note-linux

{0} is the full match. {1}, {2}, and so on refer to positional capture groups. {course} and {topic} refer to named groups.

Glob

Glob patterns support:

• * — any characters except /;
• ** — any characters, including /;
• ? — exactly one character except /.

Examples:

Pattern: projects/*/notes/*.md
Mode: Glob
Tags: project-note

This matches a note directly inside projects/<project>/notes/. A pattern such as projects/**/README.md also matches through nested folders.

Frontmatter behavior

Tags are merged into the existing YAML frontmatter without replacing manual tags or creating duplicates. Values are trimmed, empty values are ignored, and leading # is removed.

The resulting field is written as a YAML list:

---
tags:
  - personal
  - course-linux
---

Running the same rule again is safe and does not add another copy of a tag.

Commands and preview

The command palette provides commands to apply tags to the current file, current folder, or entire vault. Matching can also be previewed for each of these scopes without changing files.

Preview shows matching rules, existing tags, tags that would be added, and the final deduplicated tag set. The Test button on a rule accepts a vault-relative path and shows whether it matches, its captures, and resolved tag values without modifying a note.