Bases

Bases let you treat your notes as a database. Define a base that pulls notes from a folder, tag, or search query, then view and filter them by their YAML frontmatter properties. Think of it like a spreadsheet view over your Markdown files.

Creating a base

Create a .base file from the sidebar or command palette. A base file is JSON that defines:

• Source — Where to pull notes from (folder, tag, or search query)
• Properties — Which frontmatter fields to display
• Views — How to display the data (table, list, gallery)
• Filters and sorts — How to narrow and order the results

Example base file

{
  "name": "Project Notes",
  "source": {
    "type": "folder",
    "path": "/projects",
    "recursive": true
  },
  "properties": {
    "title": { "type": "text", "name": "Title" },
    "status": { "type": "select", "name": "Status", "options": ["draft", "review", "published"] },
    "tags": { "type": "multi-select", "name": "Tags" },
    "created": { "type": "date", "name": "Created" },
    "modified": { "type": "date", "name": "Modified" }
  },
  "views": {
    "default": {
      "type": "table",
      "name": "All Notes",
      "sort": [{ "property": "modified", "direction": "desc" }],
      "display": {
        "columns": [
          { "property": "title", "width": 200, "visible": true },
          { "property": "status", "width": 120, "visible": true },
          { "property": "tags", "width": 150, "visible": true },
          { "property": "modified", "width": 120, "visible": true }
        ],
        "pageSize": 50
      }
    }
  }
}

Data sources

Each base has a source that determines which notes it includes:

Source type	Config	Description
folder	path, recursive	All Markdown files in a folder (optionally including subfolders)
tag	tag	All notes with a specific tag in frontmatter
search	query	Notes matching a text search query
manual	—	Manually selected notes

Property types

Properties map to YAML frontmatter fields. Lokus auto-detects types from values, but you can also define them explicitly.

Type	Description	Example value
text	Plain text string	"Meeting notes"
number	Numeric value	42
date	Date or datetime	2025-01-15
boolean	True/false	true
select	Single choice from options	"draft"
multi-select	Multiple choices	["react", "typescript"]
file	File path reference	"/path/to/note.md"
url	URL	"https://example.com"
email	Email address	"user@example.com"
phone	Phone number	"+1-555-0123"
rating	Numeric rating (0-5)	4
formula	Computed value	concat(title, " - ", status)
relation	Link to another base	—
rollup	Aggregation over a relation	—

The frontmatter in your Markdown files provides the data:

---
title: Weekly Review
status: draft
tags: [planning, weekly]
priority: high
due: 2025-02-28
---

Views

Table view

The default view. Shows notes as rows and properties as columns. Features:

• Click column headers to sort ascending/descending
• Drag column borders to resize
• Show/hide columns via the column manager
• Pagination (configurable page size, default 50)
• Click a row to open that note

List view

A compact vertical list showing note names and selected properties. Good for scanning through many notes quickly.

Gallery view

A grid of cards, each showing a note’s properties in a card layout. Useful when notes have images or you want a more visual overview.

Filtering

Click the filter icon to open the filter builder. Each filter has three parts:

1. Property — Which field to filter on
2. Operator — How to compare
3. Value — What to compare against

Filter operators

Category	Operators
Equality	==, !=
Comparison	>, >=, <, <=
Text	contains, not-contains, starts-with, ends-with, matches
Array	in, not-in
Existence	is-empty, is-not-empty
Tags	taggedWith, not-taggedWith
Files	inFolder, not-inFolder, hasOutlink, hasBacklink
Dates	before, after, on, between

Combine multiple filters with AND or OR logic.

Built-in filter functions

These functions work in filter expressions:

Function	Description
taggedWith(file, tag)	File has a specific tag
inFolder(file, path)	File is in a folder
hasLink(file, target)	File links to target
hasProperty(file, prop)	File has a frontmatter property
isEmpty(file)	File content is empty
hasContent(file, text)	File contains specific text
wordCount(file)	Word count of file
createdAfter(file, date)	Created after a date
createdBefore(file, date)	Created before a date
modifiedAfter(file, date)	Modified after a date

Sorting

Sort by any property in ascending or descending order. You can apply multiple sort levels — the first sort is primary, subsequent sorts break ties.

"sort": [
  { "property": "priority", "direction": "desc" },
  { "property": "modified", "direction": "desc" }
]

Type-aware sorting is built in: numbers sort numerically, dates sort chronologically, booleans sort by value, and text sorts alphabetically using locale-aware comparison.

Formulas

Define computed properties using formula expressions. The formula engine supports:

Math functions

sum, average, min, max, count, round, ceil, floor, abs, sqrt, power

Text functions

concat, length, upper, lower, trim, substring, replace, split, join

Date functions

now, today, year, month, day, weekday, dateAdd, dateDiff, formatDate

Logic functions

if, and, or, not, switch

Note-specific functions

noteTitle, notePath, noteTags, noteCreated, noteModified, backlinks, outlinks

Example formula property

"daysSinceModified": {
  "type": "formula",
  "name": "Days Since Modified",
  "formula": "dateDiff(noteModified(), now(), 'days')"
}

Scope

By default, a base queries all files matching its source. You can narrow the scope to the currently selected folder in the file tree by toggling the scope mode between “all” and “current folder” in the bases toolbar.

Exporting

Click the export button to download the current view as a CSV file. The export includes all visible rows and columns, with arrays joined by semicolons and dates formatted as ISO strings.

Settings

Each base has configurable settings:

Setting	Default	Description
defaultView	"default"	Which view to show when opening the base
allowCreate	true	Allow creating new notes from the base
allowEdit	true	Allow editing note properties inline
allowDelete	false	Allow deleting notes from the base
template	—	Template to use when creating new notes
autoRefresh	false	Auto-refresh data on an interval
refreshInterval	30000	Refresh interval in milliseconds