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Multi-root workspaces

A VS Code multi-root workspace has several folders side by side. A common setup is a knowledge base you add to each of your projects, so both your own notes and the project’s notes are at hand:

my-project.code-workspace
├── my-project/       ← first folder
└── knowledge-base/   ← your knowledge base, added to every workspace

Foam indexes every folder, so links and the graph work across them. What needs care is where new notes go: by default, Foam creates them in the first folder.

Settings

Section titled “Settings”

Put Foam settings in the .code-workspace file or in your user settings. In a multi-root workspace, VS Code ignores them in a folder’s own .vscode/settings.json.

Templates

Section titled “Templates”

Foam looks for Note Templates in the templates folder (.foam/templates by default) of every folder in the workspace:

  • Foam: Create New Note From Template lists the templates of all folders. When two folders have a template with the same name, it shows which folder each one is in.
  • For the special new-note and daily-note templates, Foam checks each folder in the order they’re listed and uses the first one it finds.
  • New templates are created in the first folder.

Create notes in a specific folder

Section titled “Create notes in a specific folder”

A template’s filepath can name the folder a note goes in: start it with / and the folder’s name. For example, if you want all new notes to go in knowledge-base/inbox/, your new-note template, knowledge-base/.foam/templates/new-note.md, would look like this:

---
foam_template:
  filepath: '/knowledge-base/inbox/$FOAM_SLUG.md'
---


# $FOAM_TITLE

Foam: Create New Note, and Ctrl+clicking a [[placeholder]], then create the note in knowledge-base/inbox/, in every workspace you add knowledge-base to, as long as the project has no new-note template of its own. To choose for each note instead, give the template another name, such as global-note.md, and pick it with Foam: Create New Note From Template.

Daily Notes work the same way, with knowledge-base/.foam/templates/daily-note.md:

---
foam_template:
  filepath: '/knowledge-base/journal/$FOAM_DATE_YEAR-$FOAM_DATE_MONTH-$FOAM_DATE_DATE.md'
---


# $FOAM_DATE_YEAR-$FOAM_DATE_MONTH-$FOAM_DATE_DATE

A few things to know:

  • Use the folder’s name on disk, with the same capitalization, not a different name you gave it in the .code-workspace file.
  • If no folder has that name, the path starts from the first folder: /journal/today.md goes in my-project/journal/.
  • The same template works when you open the knowledge base on its own: /knowledge-base/inbox/ is then its own inbox/ folder.

With the default settings, notes created without a filepath, such as with Foam: Create New Note when there’s no new-note template, go in the first folder.

Section titled “Related”

LINKS TO THIS PAGE

Note Templates Recipes
Published with Foam