Obsidian templates that put every note in the right place

Every kind of entry on this site has its own Obsidian template. The template fills in the properties, and one of them, type, decides where the note ends up: a Day page, a guide, a video page, the bookshelf. I never move files around. I create the note in the folder for its kind, and the template is already in it.

Four settings first

1. Daily notes (Settings → Daily notes): new file location Journal, date format YYYY-MM-DD, template file location Templates/Journal day. Now the calendar button creates today's note in the right folder, with the right name, already filled in.
2. Templates (Settings → Templates): template folder location Templates.
3. Files and links: default location for new notes Notes, so a quick note never lands in the top folder.
4. Templater (community plugin): install it and switch it on. Its settings: template folder Templates, "Trigger Templater on new file creation" on, and a folder template for each kind: Notes → Site note, Guides → Guide, Videos → Video, Books → Book, and so on. Now a new note in Guides/ is a guide before I type a word.

Without the first one, today's note lands in the top folder with no template, and the website does not find it. Ask me how I know.

Using a template

Create the note in the folder for its kind: Notes/, Guides/, Videos/, Books/, Projects/. Templater fills in the template and today's date by itself. Fill in the empty properties, write, done.

title and slug give the page its heading and its address. Left empty, both come from the file name, so a note Obsidian called Untitled ends up at /notes/untitled.

For a note somewhere else, or to switch a note to another kind: command palette → Templater: Insert template, and pick one. I put it on Cmd+T.

Which template goes where

Template	Fill in	Lands on
Journal day	your day, money in earned	that day's page (automatic for the daily note)
Site note	date, title, slug	a note page, in Notes and on that day in the Timeline
Guide	date, title, slug, then text, or just a url	with text: a page that is also listed on Guides. With only a url: a card on Guides that opens it
Video	date, youtube (paste the address)	a video page with the player and your text
Link	date, url	a card in Notes and on that day in the Timeline
Post	date, url (Instagram, LinkedIn)	the same, shown as a post
Photo	date, a photo in the note	a photo card; the first photo is the cover
Book	author	the shelf on Books
Project	status, note	an envelope on Home and Projects
Chapter	from, to (days or dates)	a chapter on the Timeline
Promise	day, teaser	a day the Timeline teases ahead

What a template looks like

The journal template, the one I use every day:

---
publish: true
title:
summary:
earned: []
---

It is the only one that starts published, on purpose. My Day page is public from the first sync, so I write it as if someone reads along.

Money goes in like this, and the totals add themselves up:

earned:
  - yen: 120000
    source: Client websites

A video:

---
publish: false
type: Video
date: 2026-10-06
slug:
title:
youtube:
length:
topic:
guide: false
summary:
---

The date is filled in with today's date when the template is applied. guide: true would also list the video on Guides.

A book:

---
publish: false
type: Book
author:
pages:
status: reading
started: 2026-10-06
finished:
topic:
url:
---

Set finished when you are done, and the shelf shows the day you finished it.

Folders, as a backup

Folders are for keeping the vault tidy: Notes, Guides, Videos, Photos, Posts, Links, Books, Projects, Chapters, Promises. A note without a type takes it from its top folder. A note with a type lands where the type says, wherever it sits. Anything else is a note.

When a note lands in the wrong place or nowhere

• Nowhere: publish is false, the date is missing or in the future, or a required field is empty. The build log on Cloudflare names the note and the missing field.
• Wrong place: check type. It wins over the folder.
• Today's note is not on the Day page: it has to be in Journal/ and named exactly like the date, 2026-10-06.

That was the last part of the series. Everything in one post: How this site works, and how I built it.