Forge

Keep your Obsidian vault organized, reliable, and useful as it grows.

Forge helps you maintain consistent metadata, repair structural drift, standardize notes, and build more dependable Dataviews, Bases, dashboards, exports, and automation workflows.

Whether your vault holds projects, research, journals, client work, tasks, notes, or personal systems, Forge helps everything keep working together over time.

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Most vaults start simple.

Then, slowly:

• fields get renamed
• tags drift apart
• templates change
• old notes stop matching new workflows
• dashboards miss results
• Dataview queries become fragile
• Bases become less useful
• exports become noisy

Forge helps keep your vault consistent without forcing you into a rigid system.

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What Forge Does

Forge provides maintenance and structure tooling for Obsidian vaults:

• Schema validation
• Vault linting
• Frontmatter normalization
• Tag normalization
• Bulk note update workflows
• Vault repair tools
• Reusable note structure validation
• Cached Forge health views for Obsidian Bases
• Relationship indexes
• Vault exports
• Maintenance workflows
• Vault-installed documentation
• Copy-ready examples

Think of it as:

Maintenance tooling for long-lived Obsidian vaults.

Or more simply:

Forge helps your vault stay clean, consistent, and dependable over time.

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Why Consistency Matters

Many Obsidian workflows depend on predictable metadata and structure.

That includes:

• Dataview
• Bases
• dashboards
• templates
• graph relationships
• automation workflows
• AI-assisted workflows
• note queries
• exports

When metadata is consistent, your tools can find the right notes.

When metadata drifts, your tools become unreliable.

Examples:

• project vs projects
• active vs in-progress
• type vs note_type
• missing frontmatter
• duplicated tags
• malformed YAML
• old templates mixed with new templates

Forge helps keep your vault structure predictable so your queries, Bases, dashboards, and workflows continue working months or years later.

The goal is not rigid control.

The goal is durable consistency.

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Who Forge Is For

Forge is useful for anyone whose vault has started to grow beyond manual cleanup.

It works well for:

• personal knowledge systems
• project vaults
• research vaults
• journals
• writing systems
• task systems
• client workspaces
• team/shared vaults
• Dataview-heavy vaults
• Bases-driven workflows
• AI-assisted note systems

You do not need a perfect vault to use Forge.

Forge is designed for real vaults: uneven, evolving, useful, and alive.

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Installation

Community Plugins

Search for Forge in Settings → Community Plugins and click Install.

Enable Forge after installation. After any update, click Reload plugins from the command palette so Obsidian registers the latest plugin files.

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Manual Installation

Build the plugin from source:

npm install
npm run build

Copy these files into your vault plugin folder:

.obsidian/plugins/forge/

Required files:

manifest.json
main.js
styles.css

Then enable Forge in Settings → Community Plugins.

After installation or updates, click Reload plugins from the command palette so Obsidian reloads Forge and registers the latest plugin files.

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Forge 3 Upgrade Notes

Forge 3 requires Obsidian 1.10.0 or newer. It does not require a note or settings migration.

After updating:

1. Run Reload plugins from the command palette.
2. Enable the Bases core plugin if you want to use the Forge health layout.
3. Run Refresh Forge health once to populate clean-versus-unscanned cache data.

Existing lint, Shape, and review findings remain visible before that first refresh. Obsidian 1.13 and newer also exposes individual Forge controls through native settings search; Obsidian 1.10–1.12 continues to use Forge's existing settings renderer.

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Quick Start

1. Install the Documentation

Run:

Forge: Install Documentation

Forge installs a complete documentation and examples system directly into your vault.

Typical structure:

{{forge}}/
├── Docs/
├── Examples/
├── Patches/
├── Schemas/
├── Shapes/
└── Exports/

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2. Open the Start Guide

Read:

Docs/1. Start Here.md

The installed vault docs are the main Forge documentation.

They include:

• setup walkthroughs
• schema guides
• lint workflows
• repair workflows
• export documentation
• shape systems
• Forge Health for Bases
• settings references
• troubleshooting guides
• operational examples
• copy-ready templates

The README gives the overview.

The installed docs are the field guide.

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3. Run Your First Vault Lint

Run:

Forge: Run Vault Lint

Forge scans your vault for structural inconsistencies such as:

• missing metadata
• malformed frontmatter
• inconsistent tags
• schema violations
• stale fields
• shape mismatches
• structural drift

The results are grouped into actionable categories so you can improve your vault gradually.

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Core Features

Schema Validation

Schemas define the structure you want your notes to follow.

They can describe:

• required fields
• allowed values
• note types
• review schedules
• metadata expectations
• folder rules
• tag rules

Example:

frontmatter:
  required:
    - name: status
      type: enum
      values:
        - draft
        - active
        - archived

Schemas help keep notes predictable.

That makes Dataview queries, Bases, dashboards, exports, and automations easier to trust.

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Vault Linting

Forge validates notes against your schemas and structural rules.

Linting can detect:

• missing frontmatter
• malformed YAML
• invalid metadata
• inconsistent tags
• outdated fields
• schema violations
• stale review cycles
• shape mismatches

Forge groups findings by severity so you can prioritize structural problems incrementally instead of fixing everything at once.

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Forge Health for Bases

Forge 3 adds a Forge health layout to Bases. It maps the active Base result set to cached vault lint, Shape lint, and review results without writing health fields into your notes or scanning the vault when Base filters change.

The view distinguishes errors, warnings, notes needing review, clean notes, and notes that were not included in the latest scan. Its options control minimum severity, clean and unscanned visibility, and grouping by health status.

Enable the Bases core plugin, reload plugins, then choose Forge health from the Base view menu. Use Refresh Forge health once after upgrading so clean and not-scanned notes can be distinguished.

Forge 3 requires Obsidian 1.10.0 or newer because it uses the Bases API as a first-class plugin surface.

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Normalization

Normalization keeps metadata formatting clean and predictable.

Forge can:

• sort tags
• deduplicate tags
• standardize frontmatter ordering
• normalize metadata structure
• reduce formatting drift

Small inconsistencies compound over time.

Normalization keeps the vault tidy before small cracks become weird little YAML goblins.

Detailed normalization workflows and before/after examples are included in the installed docs.

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Patch Engine

Patches are reusable operational workflows stored as markdown notes.

They can be used for:

• vault migrations
• metadata repair
• bulk edits
• note movement
• field updates
• structural cleanup

Example:

# Patch

```yaml
operations:
  - op: set_field
    target: "Projects/Home.md"
    field: status
    value: active
```

Patch workflows support:

• dry runs
• backups
• restore operations
• conditional execution

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Additional patch walkthroughs and repair workflows are included in the installed docs and examples.

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Vault Repair

Forge can generate repair operations from lint findings.

Repair workflows help fix:

• malformed frontmatter
• invalid fields
• missing metadata
• inconsistent tags
• structural mismatches

Repair actions are previewable and reversible.

Repair walkthroughs and recovery examples are included in the installed docs.

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Shapes

Shapes are reusable structural blueprints for note systems.

They help validate organization beyond simple metadata.

Shapes are useful for:

• project workspaces
• meeting notes
• research pipelines
• client records
• operational runbooks
• content workflows

Forge supports:

• recursive shape matching
• shape linting
• template refinement
• repair workflows
• dry runs
• restore support

Complete shape examples and recursive validation walkthroughs are included in the installed docs.

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Relationship Indexes

Forge can build relationship indexes from your notes.

This helps surface how ideas, projects, people, systems, and topics connect across your vault.

Relationship indexes make larger vaults easier to:

• navigate
• query
• audit
• visualize
• export
• use with AI workflows

Forge calls these ontology indexes because they map relationships between notes and concepts across the vault.

You do not need to be an ontology expert to use them.

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Export System

Forge exports structured vault data for dashboards, AI tooling, audits, and external workflows.

Export Vault Overview generates:

• vault-inventory.json
• vault-meta.json
• vault-export.md

Export Ontology Index generates relationship indexes from configured note headings.

Exports are useful for:

• AI context generation
• vault dashboards
• metadata audits
• reporting
• external integrations
• archival workflows

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Additional export examples and dashboard walkthroughs are included in the installed docs.

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Example Packs

Forge installs organized examples directly into your vault.

Examples include:

• starter schemas
• lint workflows
• patch operations
• repair examples
• shape systems
• export workflows
• maintenance routines

The examples are designed to be copied and adapted to your own vault.

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Works Well Alongside

Forge complements tools like:

• Dataview
• Bases
• Templater
• Metadata Menu
• QuickAdd
• dashboard notes
• AI-assisted workflows

Forge focuses on the layer underneath those tools:

clean, consistent, queryable structure.

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Commands

Detailed command walkthroughs and examples are included in the installed documentation.

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Settings

Forge includes dedicated settings sections for:

• General configuration
• Schema management
• Vault linting
• Patch execution
• Shapes
• Export configuration
• Maintenance
• Advanced operations

Every setting is documented in the installed vault docs.

On Obsidian 1.13 and newer, Forge exposes individual native controls to Settings search with inline validation where supported. Obsidian 1.10–1.12 retains the same settings and persistence behavior through Forge's existing renderer.

When Obsidian Sync or another device changes Forge settings, Forge shows an explicit reload prompt in Vault Health. Choose Reload to apply the synced values to the running plugin; Forge does not silently replace active settings.

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Safety Philosophy

Forge is intentionally conservative.

The plugin emphasizes:

• explicit operations
• dry-run workflows
• reversible changes
• restore support
• operational visibility
• predictable behavior

You stay in control of vault modifications.

Recommended practices:

• Use Git for large vaults
• Backup before major operations
• Test schemas incrementally
• Run linting before patch execution
• Use dry runs before repair workflows

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Development

npm install
npm run build

Release assets are generated from the plugin root.

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Philosophy

Knowledge systems naturally drift over time.

Fields change. Templates evolve. Workflows shift. Old notes stop matching new structures.

Forge exists to help your vault remain:

• Consistent
• Queryable
• Repairable
• Reliable
• Maintainable

Not through rigidity.

Through sustainable structure and practical maintenance over time.

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License

MIT