laurigates/vault-templates

Templater Convention & Drift Repair

When to Use This Skill

| Use this skill when... | Use the alternative instead when... | |---|---| | Repairing unrendered <% tp.file.cursor() %> / {{title}} markers committed in note bodies | Stripping the same kind of markers inside YAML frontmatter — use vault-frontmatter | | Auditing daily-note structure drift against the canonical Templater template | Creating new daily notes interactively via the running CLI — use vault-files | | Fixing notes committed before Templater finished rendering | Reconnecting the cleaned-up notes into a hub afterwards — use vault-mocs |

Obsidian's Templater plugin renders placeholder syntax when a new note is created. When rendering fails (plugin error, user dismissal, manual copy-paste), the literal markers get committed and persist. Fixing them is mechanical.

Unrendered Markers

| Marker | Meaning | Fix | |--------|---------|-----| | <% tp.file.cursor(N) %> | Cursor position placeholder | Strip the entire tag | | <% tp.file.title %> | Filename stem | Replace with actual filename (no .md) | | <% tp.date.now("YYYY-MM-DD") %> | Today's date | Replace with the creation date from frontmatter, or the filename date for daily notes | | {{title}} | Filename stem (legacy) | Replace with filename stem | | {{date}} | Today's date (legacy) | Same as above | | <% await tp.system.prompt(...) %> | User prompt | Strip; requires user to refill |

Detection

# Find any Templater leak
rg '<%\s*tp\.' --glob '*.md'
rg '\{\{title\}\}|\{\{date\}\}' --glob '*.md'

Fixing <% tp.file.cursor(1) %>

Before:

---
tags: [📝/notes]
---

<% tp.file.cursor(1) %>

After:

---
tags: [📝/notes]
---

Use Edit with old_string='\n\n<% tp.file.cursor(1) %>' and new_string='' (or adjust for trailing whitespace) — the cursor marker never has meaningful content around it.

Fixing {{title}} in daily notes

Before (file work/notes/2025-03-26.md):

# {{title}}

## Log

After:

# 2025-03-26

## Log

Use the filename stem (no .md). Don't replace {{title}} inside code blocks or quoted text — only in headings / body.

Canonical Template Files

The templates themselves live in Templates/ and should contain raw Templater syntax — never "fix" them. Only fix notes outside Templates/.

| Template | Produces | Sections | |----------|----------|----------| | Daily.md | Notes/YYYY-MM-DD.md | Quick Links, Today's Focus, Work, Personal, Tomorrow's Prep, Navigation | | MOC.md | Zettelkasten/{Subject} MOC.md | Title heading + sections | | New.md | general Zettelkasten notes | Frontmatter + body stub | | Work Daily.md | work/notes/YYYY-MM-DD.md | Log, Thoughts, Discoveries, Todo, Recurring reminders |

Daily Note Structure Drift

Personal daily notes created before 2025 usually lack ## Navigation and ## Tomorrow's Prep. Two remediation options:

1. Retrofit template — add the missing sections to every old daily note. Usually not worth the diff; users rarely look at old daily notes.
2. Leave as-is — document the change boundary in a single commit message and let old notes age.

Default to #2 unless the user specifically asks for retrofit.

Work Daily Note Drift

Work-namespace daily notes that contain literal {{title}} in the heading — fix these.

Safety

• Never edit Templates/*.md when fixing leakage — templates are supposed to contain Templater syntax.
• Never run a blanket sed -i 's/{{title}}/.../' — always use file-specific Edit calls so the title derivation is correct per file.
• When you encounter <% tp.system.prompt(...) %>, don't guess the answer — flag for user.

Related Skills

• vault-frontmatter — YAML-level fixes
• vault-files — daily-note operations via Obsidian CLI