Note properties

A review date, a status, where something came from — as fields on the note rather than words encoded into its title. Everything here is optional, and a note that answers none of them is a perfectly ordinary note.

What they are for

Some things about a note are facts rather than writing. "Review this in March" is a fact; "Lease review 2026-03-14" is a title somebody had to remember to spell the same way as everybody else. A property gives that fact a place to live, the same place every time, where it can be searched for exactly.

Start with a subject, not a property. If what you want is "everything about the ferry terminal", write [[ferry terminal]] in the notes and follow the link — that already works and needs nothing set up. A property earns its keep when you need exactly one value per note (a status is one thing at a time, where a note can mention two subjects in a sentence), or a date you can compare (searching by date otherwise only reaches when the file was written, not when the work is due).

Defining them

Under Settings → Properties, and only an administrator can: a property is a vocabulary everybody in the workspace then writes in. Five kinds:

Kind	Holds
Text	anything — a URL, a reference, a name
Date	a day, written `2026-03-14`
Number	a quantity. `1,234.56` and `1.234,56` are the same number, whichever way you write it
Checkbox	yes or no
One of a list	exactly one of the choices you set

The kind cannot change afterwards. A date that became text would be a column of dates nobody can compare. Make another property and move the values across.

Renaming is safe

Rename a property whenever you like. Every search written against its old name goes on working — including a saved view, which is the one search nobody re-types and so the one that would otherwise go quietly empty. The name on the page and the name a search uses are allowed to differ, and both find the same thing.

Taking a choice off the list

A choice can stop being offered without being deleted. Notes already holding it keep saying it, marked as no longer offered, and stay findable by it — because a note that said "In review" last March really did say that. The page tells you how many notes hold a choice before you take it off the list.

Answering them

On a note's Settings page — the gear, or s — whatever kind of note it is. A property belongs to the note rather than to what is inside it, so a board can have a review date just as a Markdown note can.

Anybody who can write in a note can answer its properties. Anybody who can read it sees the answers. Clearing a field removes the answer rather than storing an empty one — a note that says nothing about a property has not answered it, which is not the same as answering it with nothing.

Finding things by them

In the search box, with prop::

What you type	What it finds
`prop:status=done`	notes whose Status is exactly Done
`prop:"status=in review"`	quote the whole clause when the value has a space in it
`prop:review-date<=2026-06-30`	everything due for review by the end of June
`prop:review-date>=2026-01-01`	on or after that day
`prop:review-date`	notes that answer it at all
`lease prop:status=done`	and it combines with an ordinary search for words

The name after prop: is the one shown beside each property on the settings page. A property nobody has defined says so rather than returning an empty page that looks like an answer. Ranges (>=, <=) are for dates and numbers, which are the kinds that have an order.

Templates

A template can fill properties in when a note is made from it — "every review starts as In review". They are defaults: anybody can change them afterwards, and changing the template does not go back and change the notes it has already made.

Programs, and Claude

A note's properties come back with the note through the API and through Claude, keyed by the name a search uses rather than by the display name — so a program keeps working when somebody renames one. Setting them is writing in a note and asks for the same permission. Defining a property is not something a key can do.

Export and import

The definitions travel with the values, because a value with no question is a number with nothing to be a number of. If you import a workspace whose "Status" is not your "Status", the two are kept apart rather than merged — the arriving one comes in under a name of its own, and your notes are left under your own vocabulary.

What is not built

Formulas and rollups. A note is writing, not a spreadsheet cell.
Properties that point at other notes. That is [[a subject]], which already exists and reads better.
Columns of properties in a saved view. Not yet; the search operators above are how you find things by them today.
More than one value for one property. Exactly one is the whole difference between a property and a subject.

Notes Text in Markdown, with its own history and a way to add to it in one line.
Checklists A tree of things to tick off, typed without the mouse.
Maps The same tree, drawn — and drawn by the server, so it prints and exports.
Boards Columns and cards, with a log of what moved where and when.
Notes and folders The tree down the left: folders, sharing, and moving things about.
Markdown Everything the text understands, with every example rendered by the real thing.
Diagrams Flowcharts, sequences and the rest — drawn from text, in any note.
Comments Say something about a sentence, without writing it into the note.
Mentions and your inbox Write somebody's name, and where it reaches them.
Saved views A search you keep, as a folder that is a question.
Keeping things for later Save it now, decide where it belongs later.
Webhooks Tell another system when something happens here, instead of it asking.
Repeating tasks and reminders A card or a row that comes back — monthly, or a few days after you finish.
Backups and restoring Taking a copy — and finding out whether the copy would bring it back.
Writing that has not been saved Every box keeps what you type until the server has it — on this device, and never called saved.