Obsidian Moments

A timeline that brings your Obsidian vault together.

Why Moments?

Daily and periodic notes are a great starting point for date-based organization, but they're not always enough. Meeting notes about a project belong in the project file. Events deserve their own documents. Research updates live with the research. In practice, dated content ends up spread across your vault — and no single note captures the full picture of what happened on a given day.

Moments evolves the idea. Instead of putting everything in one place, keep notes where they naturally belong and let Moments weave them into a unified timeline.

How it works

Moments recognizes three types of date-connected content:

• Inline moments — Dated headings inside any note. Add ### [[2026-02-10]] Contractor walkthrough under a project's ## Notes section and it appears in the timeline for that day.
• Standalone moments — Dedicated dated notes like 2026-02-10 - Coffee with Sarah.md. The full note becomes the moment.
• Implicit moments — Files created or modified on a given day show up as subtle secondary entries, giving context for what else you were working on.

The timeline view pulls it all together. Open it on February 10th and you see the contractor walkthrough from your renovation project, a standalone note from a coffee catch-up, your daily log, and whatever else you touched that day — all in one chronological view.

Want to see it in action? Open the demo/ folder as an Obsidian vault to explore a working example.

Features

Create Inline Moments

Add a dated heading to any file with a single command. Perfect for adding timestamped updates to project files.

Command: Insert inline moment in current file

Tip: On mobile, you can add this command to the toolbar for quick one-tap access. Go to Settings → Mobile → Manage toolbar options and add "Insert inline moment in current file".

This inserts a heading like:

### [[2026-02-04]] Call with Lawyer

Configure:

• Which section to insert under (e.g., ## Notes)
• Whether to prepend (newest first) or append (oldest first)
• Heading level (H2, H3, H4, etc.)

Create Standalone Moments

Create a new dated note file with a single command.

Command: Create new standalone moment

This creates a file like 2026-02-04 - Meeting notes.md in your default notes location.

Timeline View

A sidebar panel (or full-page view) showing all your moments chronologically.

Command: Open timeline

The timeline shows:

• Day sections: Collapsible sections for each day
• Primary content: Your inline and standalone moments with their full content
• Secondary content: Other files created or modified that day (muted, for context)

Filtering

• Click a day header to focus on just that day
• Navigate with Today/Previous/Next buttons
• Auto-filter: When viewing a daily, weekly, or monthly note, the timeline automatically filters to that period

Integration with Daily Notes

Moments works independently but respects your existing setup:

• Detects date format from Daily Notes or Periodic Notes plugin
• Auto-filters timeline when viewing periodic notes
• No configuration needed if you're already using these plugins

Installation

Using BRAT (recommended while awaiting community plugin approval)

BRAT (Beta Reviewers Auto-update Tester) lets you install plugins directly from GitHub — no need to wait for community plugin approval.

1. Install BRAT from Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search "BRAT"
2. Open Settings → BRAT → Add Beta plugin
3. Enter mattmcmanus/obsidian-moments and select Add Plugin
4. Enable Moments in Settings → Community plugins

BRAT will automatically notify you when updates are available.

From Obsidian Community Plugins

Note: Moments is pending approval in the Obsidian community plugin directory. Use BRAT in the meantime.

1. Open Settings → Community plugins
2. Select Browse and search for "Moments"
3. Select Install, then Enable

Manual Installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Create a folder: <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/moments/
3. Copy the downloaded files into this folder
4. Reload Obsidian and enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins

Settings

Date Settings

• Date format: Format for dates (default: YYYY-MM-DD). Auto-detected from Daily Notes if installed.
• Date link style: Wiki-link [[2026-02-04]] or plain text

Inline Moments

• Target section: The heading to insert moments under (default: ## Notes). Set to none to insert at cursor.
• Position: Prepend (newest first) or append (oldest first)
• Heading level: H2, H3, H4, H5, or H6 (default: H3)

Timeline

• Auto-filter on periodic note: Automatically filter timeline when viewing a periodic note (default: on)
• Show implicit moments: Show files created/modified as secondary entries (default: on)
• Open on startup: Use timeline as your homepage (default: off)

Usage Examples

Project Notes Pattern

Keep timestamped updates in your project files:

# Project Alpha

## Overview
Project description here...

## Notes

### [[2026-02-04]] Call with Lawyer
Discussed contract terms. Need to review section 3.

### [[2026-02-01]] Kickoff meeting
Initial planning session. Assigned roles.

Standalone Dated Notes

For longer content that deserves its own file:

2026-02-04 - Board meeting.md
2026-02-04 - Interview with candidate.md

Timeline View

Open the timeline to see everything from a given day:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  February 4, 2026                               │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Call with Lawyer                               │
│  Discussed contract terms. Need to review...   │
│                                                 │
│  Board meeting                                  │
│  Full content of the meeting notes...          │
│                                                 │
│  [[Pizza party planning]] created               │
│  [[Q1 Budget]] updated                          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Commands

Command	Hotkey	Description
Insert inline moment in current file	—	Add a dated heading to the current file
Create new standalone moment	—	Create a new dated note file
Open timeline	—	Open timeline in sidebar
Open timeline in new tab	—	Open timeline as full page
Go to today	—	Jump timeline to today

Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run tests
npm test

# Run tests in watch mode
npm run test:watch

# Build for development (watch mode)
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

License

MIT