Frontmatter fields

Every note begins with a YAML frontmatter block. Cuaderno parses it into a typed structure — if it parses, it’s valid (see Business rules). This page lists the fields per note type. ? marks an optional field.

Notes that cdno creates are already well-formed. You mainly need this when hand-authoring or migrating notes — and cdno normalise will reorder keys to the canonical order for you.

daily

type: daily
date: 2026-04-25
tags: []          # auto-populated

weekly

type: weekly
week: 2026-W17
date_start: 2026-04-20
date_end: 2026-04-26

monthly

type: monthly
month: 2026-04
date_start: 2026-04-01
date_end: 2026-04-30

project

type: project
context: work          # work | side-project | university | family | household | legal | personal
status: active         # active | parked
created: 2026-04-25
core_question?: "[[questions/research/surrogate-cost]]"

action

type: action
status: active         # active | completed | blocked
project: surrogate-model
energy: deep           # deep | medium | light
milestone?: "[[...]]"
due?: 2026-05-10
criteria?: "Definition of done"
blocker?: "What it's waiting on"
created: 2026-04-25
completed?: 2026-05-01
tags?: []

portfolio

type: portfolio
question: "Sparse vs dense attention OOD"
created: 2026-03-01
project?: "[[projects/surrogate-model]]"

evidence

type: evidence
created: 2026-03-15
source: "Chen et al. 2025"
portfolio: sparse-vs-dense-attention-ood
origin: "[[projects/surrogate-model]]"
kind?: pdf             # only for attachment stubs (pdf | image | video | …)

stewardship

type: stewardship
context: personal      # one of the life-domain contexts

tracking

type: tracking
stewardship: health
activity: gym
date: 2026-04-06
duration_min?: 60
routine?: "[[stewardships/health/routines/upper-body-a]]"

question

type: question
domain: research       # research | life
status: active         # active | parked | answered | retired
created: 2026-04-25
updated?: 2026-05-01

commitment

type: commitment
due: 2026-06-01
context: personal
project?: icml-paper
stewardship?: finances

Extending schemas

You can require additional fields per type via config.toml ([schemas.<type>] extra_required) — see Configuration reference. Required built-in fields are always enforced on top.