Obsidian Skills

Subtracting two dates results in a Duration type, not a number.

Important: A Duration object does NOT support direct mathematical operations like .round(), .floor(), or .ceil(). To perform these operations, you must first access a numeric field (such as .days or .hours) to convert the duration into a number.

Duration Fields:

• duration.days: Total days in duration
• duration.hours: Total hours in duration
• duration.minutes: Total minutes in duration
• duration.seconds: Total seconds in duration
• duration.milliseconds: Total milliseconds in duration

# CORRECT: Calculate days between dates
"(date(due_date) - today()).days"                    # Returns number of days
"(now() - file.ctime).days"                          # Days since created

# CORRECT: Round the numeric result if needed
"(date(due_date) - today()).days.round(0)"           # Rounded days
"(now() - file.ctime).hours.round(0)"                # Rounded hours

# WRONG - will cause error:
# "((date(due) - today()) / 86400000).round(0)"      # Duration doesn't support division then round

Bases support several view types to visualize your data. Each view is defined in the views array.

• table: A spreadsheet-like view. Supports groupBy and summaries.
• cards: A gallery-style view, useful for visual items like books or images.
• list: A simple vertical list of items.
• map: A geographic view. Requires latitude/longitude properties and the Maps community plugin.

View Configuration Options

• type: The view style (table, cards, list, or map).
• name: The display name for the view.
• limit: (Optional) Maximum number of results to show.
• groupBy: (Optional) Group results by a property with direction (ASC or DESC).
• filters: (Optional) View-specific filters that override or supplement global filters.
• order: An array of properties to display in sequence.
• summaries: (Optional) Map properties to summary formulas (e.g., property_name: Average).

views:
  - type: table
    name: "My Table"
    order:
      - file.name
      - status
      - due_date
    summaries:
      price: Sum
      count: Average

Formulas are defined in the formulas section and compute values from note properties, file properties, or other formulas. Use the formula. prefix to reference them in properties or views.

Common Formula Patterns

• Arithmetic: total: "price * quantity"
• Conditional: status_icon: 'if(done, "✅", "⏳")'
• String Formatting: formatted_price: 'if(price, price.toFixed(2) + " dollars")'
• Date Formatting: created: 'file.ctime.format("YYYY-MM-DD")'
• Duration Calculation: days_old: '(now() - file.ctime).days'

Key Functions

Working with Durations

Subtracting two dates returns a Duration type. To perform math on a duration, you must access a numeric field (like .days) first. Duration does not support .round(), .floor(), or .ceil() directly.

Correct: "(date(due_date) - today()).days.round(0)" Incorrect: "((date(due) - today()) / 86400000).round(0)"

formulas:
  days_until_due: 'if(due, (date(due) - today()).days, "")'
  is_overdue: 'if(due, date(due) < today() && status != "done", false)'

Filters can be applied globally (to all views in the base) or per-view. They can be a single filter string or a recursive object using and, or, or not keys.

Filter Operators

Filter Structure Examples

# Single filter
filters: 'status == "done"'

# AND - all conditions must be true
filters:
  and:
    - 'status == "done"'
    - 'priority > 3'

# OR - any condition can be true
filters:
  or:
    - 'file.hasTag("book")'
    - 'file.hasTag("article")'

# NOT - exclude matching items
filters:
  not:
    - 'file.hasTag("archived")'

# Nested filters
filters:
  or:
    - file.hasTag("tag")
    - and:
        - file.hasTag("book")
        - file.hasLink("Textbook")
    - not:
        - file.hasTag("book")
        - file.inFolder("Required Reading")