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Nested Frontmatter Properties

by copperbox
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Score: 50/100
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Description

An obsidian plugin to support rendering nested array/object frontmatter properties in the native UI.

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Latest Version

1.0.1
a month ago

Changelog

See all version on GitHub

README file from

Github

Nested Frontmatter Properties

View and edit nested frontmatter properties — arrays of objects and nested objects — directly in Obsidian's Properties panel, instead of the stock "unsupported type" warning showing raw text.

What it does

---
title: My book note
authors:
  - name: Ann Author
    pages: 320
  - name: Ben Writer
    pages: 12
meta:
  draft: true
---

Without the plugin, Obsidian's Properties panel shows those values as raw text with an "unknown type" warning:

With the plugin, the same authors and meta properties render as indented, editable rows:

Values Obsidian already supports (text, lists of scalars, numbers, dates, checkboxes) are never touched.

  • Edit leaf values inline (text, number, checkbox inferred from the current value)

  • Add and remove array items and object keys, choosing text, object, or list for each new value:

  • Everything is written back through Obsidian's public frontmatter API

How this differs from Nested Properties

The Nested Properties plugin covers similar ground with a larger feature set (vault-wide key renames, type conversion, collapsible trees). This plugin is an independent, from-scratch implementation with a different goal: the smallest possible trusted surface. It ships under 10 KB with no bundled framework, no Electron or Node API references, and a CI gate that keeps it that way.

Design principles

This plugin is deliberately minimal, built to carry zero automated risk flags on the community plugin store:

  • No network access, no telemetry, no dynamic code (eval), no clipboard or localStorage access, no Electron or Node APIs. Works on mobile.
  • All writes use the public processFrontMatter API. No YAML library is bundled; Obsidian does all parsing and serialization.
  • One runtime dependency: monkey-around (~1 KB), used to wrap a single method reversibly.
  • CI enforces the above: every build greps the shipped bundle for forbidden tokens (ipcRenderer, eval, innerHTML, fetch, …) and fails if any appear. Releases carry GitHub build provenance attestation.

Undocumented API notice

Obsidian has no public API for custom property widgets. To render inside the native Properties panel, this plugin registers a widget in metadataTypeManager.registeredTypeWidgets and wraps getTypeInfo so values the stock UI marks unsupported resolve to it. This is plain in-renderer JavaScript at the same privilege level as any plugin code — it grants no access beyond the plugin sandbox. Every internal access is feature-detected: if a future Obsidian update changes these internals, the plugin deactivates itself and the stock behavior returns unchanged.

Installation

Until listed in the community store: copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/nested-frontmatter-properties/.

Development

npm install
npm run dev      # watch build
npm test         # unit tests (pure edit/detect logic)
npm run build    # typecheck + production build + bundle token check
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