Relationships

Relationships make a vault feel like a graph instead of a pile of documents.

Relationship Fields

Any frontmatter field containing wikilinks can become a relationship. Relationship fields can point to one note or to an array of notes.

belongs_to:
  - "[[product-work]]"
related_to:
  - "[[documentation]]"
  - "[[editor-research]]"
blocked_by:
  - "[[release-process]]"
  - "[[sync-conflicts]]"

Tolaria supports default relationship fields out of the box: belongs_to, has, and related_to. It also detects custom relationship fields dynamically when they contain wikilinks.

Default relationships have automatically computed inverses. If a note says it belongs_to a project, the project can show that note under its inverse has relationship without you writing the reverse link by hand. related_to works as a lateral relationship in both directions.

These outgoing and inverse relationships appear in the Properties panel and in Neighborhood mode, where the note list becomes a graph view around the selected note.

Body Links Versus Relationship Fields

Use body links when the relationship appears naturally in writing. Use frontmatter relationships when the connection is important enough to show in navigation, filters, Neighborhood mode, or the Properties panel.

Backlinks

Tolaria can show incoming links and inverse relationships, making it easier to navigate from a note to the rest of its context.