Commands

⚠️ This page is currently under active refactoring.

From Commands

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Content-level refactoring

Move Selection To

From Dendron: Move Selection To

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Move the currently selected block of text to another note and update all backlinks.

Move Header

From Dendron: Move Header

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Move the selected header to another note.

Rename Header

From Dendron: Rename Header

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Rename a header and update all backlinks to that note.

Convert Link

From Dendron: Convert Link

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Convert selected link to other types of links or plaintext.

Note-level refactoring

Rename note

From Dendron: Rename Note

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Rename a note and update all backlinks to that note.

Move Note

From Dendron: Move Note

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Move a note to another vault and update all backlinks to that note.

Merge Note

From Dendron: Merge Note

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Merge a note into another note and update all backlinks

Hierarchy-level refactoring

Refactor Hierarchy

From Dendron: Refactor Hierarchy

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Rename multiple notes using regular expressions

Archive Hierarchy

From Dendron: Archive Hierarchy

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Move current note and all children under the archive hierarchy

Doctor

From Doctor

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Notes

Browse Note

shortcuts: None

Open the GitHub repository (if it exists) of the current note. If you have a multi vault workspace with different git repositories, this command will

Copy Codespace URL

shortcuts: none

The current note's Codespace URL is copied to the clipboard for a Github backed workspace. The information toaster also has a button to open the note in codespaces.

Create Daily Journal Note

shortcuts:
- key: ctrl+shift+i
- mac: cmd+shift+i
- when: editorFocus

Create a global journal note

Copy Note Ref

From Copy Note Reference

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shortcuts:
- key: ctrl+shift+r
- mac: cmd+shift+r
- when: editorFocus

Copies a reference to the current open document

This lets you quickly create a note reference to the current note.

Header Selection

If you have a header selected while running this command, it will copy the note ref with the selected header to the next note ref.

Having the cursor within a header will also show a lightbulb for the Contextual UI Header Operations, which includes a Copy Header Reference quick fix. This will copy the note ref to your clipboard.

Block Selection

If you have some text selected, Dendron can insert block anchors to reference the region you have selected.

Range Selection

If you highlight multiple blocks, Dendron can create a range selection that spans the blocks selected. Watch the following video starting at the 10s mark for an example.

MultiVault

If you use this command in a multi vault workspace, Dendron will create a cross vault link to the note in question.

Delete

shortcuts:
- key: ctrl+shift+d
- mac: cmd+shift+d

Delete a note or schema. A prompt will occur before deletion if any links will break that are referencing the note. When deleting a note and when the note is on the active editor, that editor is closed after running the command.

You can also delete a note from the explorer:

Delete Node

⚠️ This is a deprecated command. Please consider using Delete instead.

Insert Note Index

Insert a block that lists the direct children of the current note to cursor position.

The format of the block is as follows:

## Index

-   [[{ch1}|{noteName}]]
    ...

If used in a multi-vault workspace and noXVaultWikiLink is not set, the wikilinks will have a vault prefix added to avoid ambiguity.

Given the following hierarchy:

├── recipe
├── recipe.eggs
├── recipe.eggs.royale
├── recipe.eggs.deviled
├── recipe.eggs.benedict
├── recipe.eggs.florentine
├── recipe.bagel
├── recipe.bagel.with-gravlax
├── recipe.chicken
└── recipe.chicken.curry

Running this command with the note recipe open will insert the following at cursor position:

## Index

-   [[Eggs|recipe.eggs]]
-   [[Bagel|recipe.bagel]]
-   [[Chicken|recipe.chicken]]

Running it in the note recipe.eggs will insert the following at cursor position:

## Index

-   [[Royale|recipe.eggs.royale]]
-   [[Deviled|recipe.eggs.deviled]]
-   [[Benedict|recipe.eggs.benedict]]
-   [[Florentine|recipe.eggs.florentine]]

configuration : insertNoteIndex

Random Note

Navigates to a random note in the workspace. By default, all notes are included in the set that can be navigated to with this command. This can be adjusted with the randomNote setting in the Dendron Config (see Configure (yaml)).

# Sample configuration in dendron.yml:
randomNote:
    include:
        - alpha
        - beta.foo
    exclude:
        - alpha.bar

This pattern would specify a set including all notes under alpha except for notes in the alpha.bar hierarchy. The set would also include notes under beta.foo*.

If include is not specified, then the include matching pattern will match all notes.
exclude takes precedence over include, so if the patterns are identical, no notes will match.

Preview

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Toggle Preview

From Toggle Preview

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Summary

Toggle display of the markdown preview

Keybindings

shortcuts:
- windows: ctrl+k v
- mac: cmd+ctrl+p

Toggle Preview Lock

From Toggle Preview Lock

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Summary

When activated, locks the preview in place. Changing the active text editor will not change the preview until the lock has been removed.

Details

Visually, this is indicated by a locked icon on the top right corner of the preview. You can toggle the locked state by using the Toggle Preview Lock command or clicking on the lock icon

Example

Lookup Note / Create Note

shortcuts:
- mac: cmd+L
- key: ctrl+l

Initiate note lookup

From Lookup

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Summary

Lookup lets you find or create a note.

Details

To work with notes, Dendron uses lookups. Lookups help you create, find, and organize your notes. You can watch the following video to see some of the things you can do with lookups.

Lookups

Dendron supports lookups by keywords separated by spaces/' ' without having to know the order where the keywords occur in the note. As example: dendron rename & rename dendron will both match note dendron.dev.design.commands.rename.

As mentioned in Details, the look up is accomplished through utilization of fusejs. You can use fusejs extended search syntax when looking up notes.

For entries that have the same score, Dendron will sort results by their last updated time. Further info on lookup syntax can be found in Finding Notes

Look up Auto Complete

Pressing Tab while having lookup view open will attempt to auto complete results. This is especially useful when dealing with hierarchies which adds on one level of hierarchy (from the highest matched result) at a time.

Details

Behind the scenes, lookup uses fusejs to do fuzzy string matching based on the note hierarchy. You can see our parameters here.

Scoring is explained here.

You can see the pseudo code for how fusejs integrates with lookup here (Private).

From Restrictions

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Summary

Dendron disallows certain characters and or patterns in the file name of a note.

Details

There are a few restrictions on how you can name your notes. This is mainly due to compatibility across different platforms, as well as some restrictions that are imposed by VSCode.

⚠️ Introduction of new restrictions are very rare, but it can happen in the future.
In that case, a detailed guide will be provided on how to automatically fix your existing notes' file names so that they conform to the new restrictions.

Automatically finding and fixing invalid filenames

You can use the Doctor command with the action fixInvalidFileNames to find and fix invalid filenames.

If an automatic fix is not possible, the doctor command will notify you with the file names that were not automatically fixable so that you can manually review and rename them.

Restrictions

Empty hierarchies

Hierarchies cannot be empty strings. This means:

file names (excluding the .md extension) cannot start or end with a ., which delineates a hierarchy.
file names cannot have consecutive dots.

# good

foo.bar.md
foo.bar.baz.md

# bad

foo..baz.md
.foo.md
foo..md

Mixed case

When you lookup a note, the query ignores cases. VSCode will also not allow you to have two files with mixed cases but same characters.

To avoid confusion, we recommend using lower-kebab-case for all your notes if possible, and keep the casing consistent at minimum on a per-hierarchy basis.

# good

foo.md
foo-bar.md

# bad

Foo.md
fOO.md
FoO.md
Foo_Bar.md

Symbols / special characters

There are a few non-alphanumeric characters that are disallowed in filenames due to compatibility across different platforms and backends.

Currently these are the disallowed characters:

( (open parentheses)
) (close parentheses)
' (single quote)
, (comma)

We recommend replacing the occurences of these symbols to -, or refactor the note to have a simpler file name that doesn't require special characters to be described.

Create Journal Note

shortcuts:
- key: ctrl+shift+j
- mac: cmd+shift+j

Creates a Journal Note.

Create Scratch Note

shortcuts:
- key: ctrl+shift+s
- mac: cmd+shift+s

Creates a Scratch Note.

Create Task Note

shortcuts: none

Creates a task note, which comes with some extra features to keep track of work items.

The Create Task Note lookup supports tabbing for autocompletion.

Set Task Status

From Set Task Status

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Summary

Change status for a task note

Keybindings

none

Details

If you have a link selected, it will set the task status for that note. If you don't have a link selected but you have a task note open, it will set the status for that note.

The statuses displayed when you use the command are based on the statusSymbols configuration.

You can create a keyboard shortcut that sets a task to a specific status. Please see Keyboard shortcut for a task status for details.

Complete Task

From Complete Task

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Summary

Mark task note as complete

Keybindings

none

Details

This works in the same way as Set Task Status, but doesn't prompt for the status to use. Instead, it will use the first status set in the taskCompleteStatus configuration.

Create Meeting Note

From Dendron: Create Meeting Note

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Summary

Create a meeting note.

From Meeting Note

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Meeting notes help you keep track of meetings by providing a structured default to capture notes, attendees and next steps.

Keybindings

none

Details

When you first run the command, a meeting note template and a meeting note schema will be created with the names templates.meet, and dendron.meet.schema.yml.

When the command is triggered, a lookup bar will appear with the query prefilled as meet.{year}.{month}.{day}.

Depending on your preference, you can add a separate name if you wish to track multiple meeting notes per day by their name by adding to the prefilled query like so:

meet.{year}.{month}.{day}.my-first-meeting

or forgo the name and keep everything under the default note like so:

meet.{year}.{month}.{day}

To learn more about meeting notes, see Meeting Note

Lookup Schema

shortcuts:
- mac: cmd+shift+L
- key: ctrl+shift+l

Initiate schema lookup

Open Backup

shortcuts: none

Open backup files created by Dendron.

When triggered, you will be prompted to select the key of the backup file. Once selected, you will be prompted again with a list of all backups saved under the key.

Currently Dendron only creates backups for dendron.yml, and these are saved with the key config.

This command is a convenience command to open backup files saved under {workspaceRoot}/.backup/{key}/.

Go to Commands

See Navigation Commands

Find all References

See Find All References

Organizing

Hierarchies

Reload Index

shortcuts: none

Reload the index. Necessary for Dendron to pick up on schema changes.

Hooks

Hook Create

Create a custom hook to trigger during Dendron's lifecycle. This command takes two parameters:

hookName: name of your hook
hookFilter: a glob pattern that filters what notes your hook applies to
- default: *, apply hook to all notes by default
hookType: where to attach the hook (coming soon - we only support onCreate at the moment)
- types: onCreate|onDelete|onChange
- default: onCreate

Hook Delete

Delete a custom hook. Will remove the hook from dendron.yml and optionally, remove {workspace}/hooks/{hookName}.js

Parameters:

hookName: name of the hook to remove
shouldDeleteScript: whether you should also delete the hook script

Workspace

Disable Telemetry

Disable telemetry across all workspaces with Dendron

Enable Telemetry

Enable telemetry across all workspaces with Dendron

Add Existing Vault

Create New Vault

Vault Add

⚠️ This is a deprecated command and will be removed in upcoming release. Please consider using Create New Vault instead.

Remove Vault

From Vaults

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Remove Vault

shortcuts: none

Remove a vault

Remove a vault from your workspace. Note that the underlying files will not be deleted - the vault will lose its association with your workspace.

You can also remove a vault from the explorer by: Right Click on the vault > Dendron: Vault Remove

Convert Vault

From Vaults

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Convert Vault

You can convert a local vault to a remote vault, or a remote vault to a local vault using this command. Simply run the command and follow the prompts.

If you are using Self Contained Vaults, then this command will also move the vault folder to be in the correct directory.

Migrate to Self Contained Vault

Converts an existing vault into a self contained vault. See migrating a regular vault for details.

Launch Tutorial

Prompt user to create an initial tutorial workspace and takes user through new tutorial

Initialize Workspace

shortcuts: none

Create a new workspace

Change Workspace

shortcuts: none

Change into existing workspace

Snapshot Vault

shortcuts: none

Create a snapshot of your vault

Takes a snapshot of your entire vault, including assets. This command will ignore version control folders like .git when making a snapshot. Snapshots are saved under {workspace}/snapshots/{timestamp}

Restore Vault

shortcuts: none

Restore your vault from a snapshot

Restores your vault based on a snapshot. When restoring, it will over-write any notes that have the same name as notes in the snapshot. It will ignore version control directories like .git when restoring your vault

Show Help

shortcuts: none

Dendron will open your current browser to the cheatsheet page.

Configure (yaml)

shortcuts: none

Modify Dendron Config as raw YAML

Configure (UI)

shortcuts: none

Modify Dendron Config using Dendron UI

Workspace: Add and Commit

From Workspace

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Start anchor workspace-add-and-commit not found

Workspace: Sync

From Workspace

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From Workspace: Sync

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Synchronize all notes across all vaults with git.

Any changes you made will be pushed back to remote, and any changes in the remote will be pulled.

Pods

Build Pod

shortcuts: none

Build your notes for export. Currently, only export to GitHub Pages is supported.

Configure Pod

shortcuts: none

Update your pod configuration

Configure Export Pod V2

Update your export pod v2 configuration.

Configure Service Connection

Update your service Connections config.

Import Pod

shortcuts: none

Import notes from an external data source. Currently, only the local file system is supported

Import Obsidian Vault

From Import Obsidian Vault

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Summary

Import Markdown notes from an Obsidian vault

This is a simplified version of Import Pod that can be used for a one-time import of your Obsidian notes into your Dendron workspace.

Export Pod

shortcuts: none

Export notes to an external data source. Currently only JSON is supported.

Publish Pod

shortcuts: none

Publish your note to a different format/location

Seeds

Browse the Seed Registry

Browse the Seeds available in the Seed Registry and view detailed information about each one. You can also add seeds to your workspace through the UI.

Add Seed to Workspace

Add a seed (Private) to your current workspace.

Remove Seed from Workspace

Remove a seed (Private) from your current workspace.

Misc

Contribute

shortcuts: none

Become an environmentalist and keep Dendron sustainable

This command takes you to Dendron's Environmentalist plans. Environmentalists are users that can support Dendron financially through a monthly contribution. Environmentalist get access to Insiders builds, priority support, and access to exclusive dev channels.

Paste File

Takes the path currently in the clipboard, copies the file into {vault}/assets, and inserts Markdown link in the current note. This is the file equivalent of Dendron's Paste Image command

Note that most file types won't be natively supported in the preview. You'll need to use the VS Code built-in > Open Link command to open the file.

If you are on macOs, you can find instructions for getting the path to the current file here

Publishing

Copy Note URL

shortcuts:
- mac: cmd+shift+u
- windows: ctrl+shift+u

Get URL of current note from published site

If you highlight a header, will copy the url with the header set as the anchor

The url is taken from the siteUrl property.

Publish

shortcuts: none

Build, commit and publish your notes with a single command

NOTE: this is meant for v1 publishing. V2 publishing currently does not have a publish command.

Publish Export

shortcuts: none

Build and export your notes using publishing v2

Publish Dev

shortcuts: none

Preview your notes on localhost using publishing v2.

Dev

Dump State

shortcuts: none

Dump internal state of Dendron inside logs

This is useful when diagnosing issues in Dendron

Dendron:Dev: Open Logs

shortcuts: none

Open Dendron logs for current session

Dendron:Dev: Diagnostics Report

From Diagnostic Report

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Summary

Copy last 3000 lines of all logs and config to clipboard. Use when submitting an issue to Dendron

Keybindings

none

Details

Diagnostics report generates a new note with the following information:

workspace type
current dendron version
previous workspace version
previous global version
extension install status
contents of dendron.yml
contents of dendron.code-workspace
last 3000 lines of logs from client and server

Dendron:Dev: Run Migration

shortcuts: none

If your dendron.yml configuration file is out of date, you can use this command to update it. Dendron should automatically prompt you and run the migration for you, but you can use this command if you didn't get the prompt for any reason.

Contextual UI

File Operations

New File

Dendron recognizes a new Markdown file created from VS Code context menu and populate it with the frontmatter.

Header Operations

These are Dendron-specific features made available as Quick Fix operations in VS Code.

A header action is announced by a lightbulb when the cursor is within a header. Clicking on the Code Action lightbulb or using the Quick Fix command Ctrl+. will display the following quick fixes.

💡 TIP: If you prefer to not see the Code Action lightbulb in your editor, you can disable lightbulbs with the editor.lightbulb.enable setting. You can still open Quick Fixes through Quick Fix command and Ctrl+. keyboard shortcut.

Copy Header Reference

From Commands

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If you have a header selected while running this command, it will copy the note ref with the selected header to the next note ref.

Having the cursor within a header will also show a lightbulb for the Contextual UI Header Operations, which includes a Copy Header Reference quick fix. This will copy the note ref to your clipboard.

Children