Vault Router

Put every note where it belongs with simple local rules — no AI, no cloud, no manual drag-and-drop.

Vault Router keeps your vault tidy by doing one job completely: decide where a note belongs, then move it there fast. It does three things:

• Route — move the current note to its rule-matched home.
• Preview — see exactly where a note will land before it moves.
• Sweep — route every matching note in your Inbox in one pass.

Rules match on title, path, tags, and frontmatter — all evaluated locally. Free is useful on day one. Pro lifts every limit and files new notes for you — a $12 one-time, offline-verified unlock: Unlock Vault Router Pro (or see the Free vs Pro table below).

Route

Send the current note to the right folder.

• Local rule matching (Free) — match on title starts with, path includes, required tag, and a frontmatter property (either just exists, or equals a value). All filled conditions must match.
• First matching rule wins (Free) — order your rules; the first one that matches decides the destination. Reorder any time.
• Destination templates (Free) — build folders from the note itself with {{frontmatter:key}}, {{basename}}, {{filename}}, and {{ext}} — e.g. Meetings/{{frontmatter:project}}.
• Up to 5 active rules (Free) — Pro is unlimited. Disabled rules never count against the free limit.

Preview

Know where a note goes before it moves.

• Preview route (Free) — run Preview route for current note to see the destination and which rule matched — a dry run that moves nothing.

Sweep

Route your Inbox backlog in one pass.

• Manual Inbox sweep (Free) — run Sweep inbox to route every matching note in your Inbox folder. Free moves up to 25 notes per run; Pro is unlimited.

Auto-route (Pro)

New notes file themselves.

• Auto-route new notes (Pro) — new notes file themselves, so you stop dragging notes out of your Inbox. Routing waits until a note's metadata (frontmatter and tags) has been indexed, so property-aware rules land it in the right place.
• Inbox-only by default (Pro) — auto-routing is scoped to your Inbox out of the box, so notes you create elsewhere stay put while you work.

Free vs Pro

Pro ($12 one-time) turns manual, capped routing into hands-off, unlimited automation. Basic routing stays free forever.

Area	Free	Pro
Route the current note	Yes	Yes
Preview a route (dry run)	Yes	Yes
Rule matching by title, path, tag, property	Yes	Yes
Destination templates ({{frontmatter:project}}, …)	Yes	Yes
Manual Inbox sweep	Up to 25 moves/run	Unlimited
Active rules	Up to 5	Unlimited
Auto-route newly created notes	No	Yes

Purchase: Buy Me a Coffee — Vault Router Pro. License keys are verified offline (Ed25519) — no account, server, or subscription.

Destination examples

Combine literal folders with placeholders ({{frontmatter:key}}, {{basename}}, {{filename}}, {{ext}}) to build the target path:

• Meetings/{{frontmatter:project}}
• Areas/School/{{frontmatter:course}}
• Projects/{{frontmatter:project}}/Notes

Commands

• Vault Router: Route current note
• Vault Router: Preview route for current note
• Vault Router: Sweep inbox

Suggested starter rules

1. Daily note — title starts with Daily - → Journal/Daily
2. Meeting notes — tag meeting → Meetings/{{frontmatter:project}}
3. Project notes — property project equals alpha → Projects/Alpha

Privacy & data

Vault Router is local-first and never phones home.

• No network calls, no cloud sync, no account.
• Pro validation is fully offline.
• All state lives in the plugin's local data.json (your rules and settings). Add .obsidian/plugins/vault-router/data.json to .gitignore if you commit your .obsidian folder.

Install

Manual: copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into .obsidian/plugins/vault-router/, then enable Vault Router in Settings → Community plugins.

Community directory: search Vault Router in Settings → Community plugins.

Activate Pro

1. Unlock Vault Router Pro.
2. Your license key is emailed to you automatically, within seconds — delivery is fully automated, no waiting.
3. Obsidian → Settings → Vault Router → paste the key. Pro unlocks immediately (offline verification).

Feedback and support

Bug reports, feature requests, and questions all go to the GitHub issue tracker. It is the only place I track them, so an issue will always get further than a review comment.

• Report a bug — please include your Obsidian version, your operating system, and the steps that reproduce it.
• Request a feature — describe the workflow you are trying to make faster; that is more useful than a proposed solution.
• Browse open issues — worth a look first, in case it is already tracked.

More plugins by the same author

Small, local-first Obsidian plugins that each do one job and keep your data in your vault. All of them are in the community directory — search the name under Settings → Community plugins.

Search and views

• Vault Spotlight — keyboard-first command center — fuzzy search, saved workflows, and result actions.
• Bases Power Pack — kanban, calendar, Gantt, and outline views over your notes or a .base file.

Vault health

• Vault Triage — find stale, orphaned, unfinished, and metadata-broken notes, then work through them.
• Attachment Audit — find orphaned, duplicate, oversized, and misplaced attachments, then clean them up safely.
• Patina — score every note's staleness from edits, opens, and inbound links.
• FlowKit Health Dashboard — find which add-on is breaking your vault, and score every one installed.

Writing and research

• Prose Lens — live writing feedback — passive voice, adverbs, hedges, cliches, and a reading grade.
• Prior Art — show similar existing notes while you write, and merge duplicates without losing links.
• Standing Questions — track the open questions in your vault and surface new notes that may answer them.
• Unwritten — report the notes you never wrote — unexplained link pairs, stub hubs, unreasoned decisions.
• Effort Index — measure the editing time behind every note and resurface the expensive ones.

Time and billing

• Task Calendar Bridge — export dated Markdown tasks to standards-based ICS calendar files.
• Invoice Forge — turn #billable notes into numbered invoices, so nothing is missed or billed twice.
• Time Tracker and Invoicing — track billable time against notes and projects, then invoice by client.

Development

npm install
npm run build
npm test        # typecheck + lint + full test suite

Listed as Optional payments in the Obsidian Community directory (free core + paid Pro unlock).