Rowbase

Rowbase is an Obsidian plugin that brings Notion-style databases to your vault. Each database is a single .rbase file — a human-readable CSV with JSON column metadata — that opens in a rich, interactive view with multiple layouts, formulas, relations, and more.

Demo

Features

Views

• Table — Full-featured spreadsheet with inline editing, sorting, filtering, column resizing, and row reordering
• Kanban — Drag-and-drop board grouped by a select column
• List — Compact grouped rows with collapsible sections
• Gallery — Card grid with cover images and clickable detail modals
• Chart — Bar, Line, Pie, and Area charts with aggregation and color-by options
• Stats — Summary cards, numeric stats, select color distribution, and date distribution
• Timeline — Gantt-style timeline with status colors, grid lines, today marker, zoom, and tooltips
• Dashboard — Habit tracking with streaks, completion rings, and activity calendar heatmap

Column Types

• Text, Number, Date, Checkbox, Select, Multi-select, Title, Note, Relation, Rollup, Formula

Data & Computation

• Formulas — Safe expression evaluator with cell references and cross-relation aggregation (SUM, AVG, COUNT, MIN, MAX) plus IF and DAYS (date difference)
• Rollups — Aggregate related rows (sum, count, avg, min, max) across relation columns
• Relations — Link rows across databases; preloaded resolver with cache for fast cross-file lookups
• Sorting — Multi-column sort with ascending/descending toggle
• Filtering — Text (contains, starts with, is empty), Number (>, <, between), Date (before, after, between), Select (is, is not), Checkbox filters
• Grouping — Group rows by any column with collapsible sections

UI/UX

• Inline editing — Click any cell to edit; text, number, date, and select types all editable in place
• Undo/Redo — Cmd+Z / Cmd+Shift+Z with 100-step history stack
• Column management — Add, rename, resize (double-click to auto-fit), reorder, delete columns via context menu
• Title linking — Open or create notes from title cells; configure note folder per column
• Folder linking — Create folders directly from title cells; configure default folder per column
• Multi-select keyboard nav — Arrow keys, Enter to select, Escape to close
• Empty states — Friendly placeholder with icons when databases or views are empty
• Mobile responsive — Optimized for tablets and phones with touch-friendly targets
• Import/Export — Import CSV files into databases; export to CSV or JSON
• Plugin settings — Default folder, template name, a validated template-columns editor, note/folder linking defaults, and show-row-numbers

Screenshots

Table View

Kanban Board

Chart View

Timeline View

Stats View

Dashboard View

Inline Editing

Installation

From the Community plugins store (recommended)

1. Open Settings → Community plugins in Obsidian.
2. If needed, turn off Restricted mode, then search for Rowbase — or open obsidian.md/plugins?id=rowbase and press Install.
3. Enable the plugin in the same screen.

Want the latest beta before it hits the store? Install it via BRAT with the repo Soulaymane01/Rowbase.

Rowbase is 100% offline — no account, no telemetry; your data stays in your vault.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release
2. Create a folder rowbase in your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory
3. Copy the three files into that folder
4. Enable Rowbase in Settings → Community Plugins

Usage

1. Use the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd + P) and run Create new database to create a .rbase file
2. Add columns using the + button in the header row
3. Add rows using the + New button at the bottom
4. Switch views using the view selector in the toolbar
5. Sort, filter, and group rows using the toolbar controls

The .rbase file is a standard CSV file with column metadata encoded in the header row. It remains human-readable and can be opened with any text editor or spreadsheet application.

The complete file-format reference for AI agents lives in SKILL.md — it documents everything needed to create and edit .rbase files through direct file manipulation.

Development

npm ci
npm run dev    # watch mode
npm run build  # production build

To test locally, create a symlink from your vault's plugin directory to the project root:

ln -s /path/to/rowbase /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/rowbase

Offline baseline

Rowbase's runtime is fully offline. It makes no HTTP requests, WebSocket connections, telemetry, CDN asset fetches, or remote service calls; everything reads from and writes to the local Obsidian vault. Its runtime source and the production bundle are audited against that policy by:

npm run build            # produces main.js
npm run test:offline     # scans src/ and main.js for network/dynamic-code behavior

Credits

Rowbase is an engineering fork of jysperm/obsidian-csv-database. The upstream project is licensed under the MIT License; that license and attribution are preserved in LICENSE. Rowbase is itself released under the MIT License.