Memory Metadata Search

Find notes by their structured frontmatter fields instead of (or in addition to) free-text content. Any custom YAML key in a note's frontmatter beyond the standard set (title, type, tags, permalink, schema) is automatically indexed as entity_metadata and becomes queryable.

When to Use

• Filtering by status or priority — find all notes with status: draft or priority: high
• Querying custom fields — any frontmatter key you invent is searchable
• Range queries — find notes with confidence > 0.7 or score between 0.3 and 0.8
• Combining text + metadata — narrow a text search with structured constraints
• Tag-based filtering — find notes tagged with specific frontmatter tags
• Schema-aware queries — filter by nested schema fields using dot notation

The Tool

All metadata searching uses searchnotes. Pass filters via metadatafilters, or use the tags and status convenience shortcuts. Omit query (or pass None) for filter-only searches.

Filter Syntax

Filters are a JSON dictionary. Each key targets a frontmatter field; the value specifies the match condition. Multiple keys combine with AND logic.

Equality

{"status": "active"}

Array Contains (all listed values must be present)

{"tags": ["security", "oauth"]}

$in (match any value in list)

{"priority": {"$in": ["high", "critical"]}}

Comparisons ($gt, $gte, $lt, $lte)

{"confidence": {"$gt": 0.7}}

Numeric values use numeric comparison; strings use lexicographic comparison.

$between (inclusive range)

{"score": {"$between": [0.3, 0.8]}}

Null (field missing or explicitly null)

{"owner": null}

Matches notes with no owner key and notes whose owner is explicitly null. Null works only as a plain equality value — inside $in, $between, an array-contains list, or a comparison it is rejected, because those compare against the value and a comparison with null is never true.

Nested Access (dot notation)

{"schema.version": "2"}

Quick Reference

Rules:

• Keys must match [A-Za-z0-9_-]+ (dots separate nesting levels)
• Operator dicts must contain exactly one operator
• $in and array-contains require non-empty lists
• $between requires exactly [min, max]
• null is an is-null match and only valid as a plain equality value
• Comparison and $between bounds must be finite numbers — a magnitude no float

can hold (a 400-digit integer, which JSON keeps as an ordinary int) is refused rather than compared against an infinite bound

• Metadata filters match Markdown notes only — indexed PDFs, images and other

regular files carry no frontmatter and are never hits, not even for null

Warning: Operators MUST include the $ prefix — write $gte, not gte. Without the prefix the filter is treated as an exact-match key and will silently return no results. Correct: {"confidence": {"$gte": 0.7}}. Wrong: {"confidence": {"gte": 0.7}}.

Using search_notes with Metadata

Pass metadatafilters, tags, or status to searchnotes. Omit query for filter-only searches, or combine text and filters together.

# Filter-only — find all notes with a given status
search_notes(metadata_filters={"status": "in-progress"})

# Filter-only — high-priority specs in a specific project
search_notes(
    metadata_filters={"type": "spec", "priority": {"$in": ["high", "critical"]}},
    project="research",
    page_size=10,
)

# Filter-only — notes with confidence above a threshold
search_notes(metadata_filters={"confidence": {"$gt": 0.7}})

# Convenience shortcuts for tags and status
search_notes(status="active")
search_notes(tags=["security", "oauth"])

# Text search narrowed by metadata
search_notes("authentication", metadata_filters={"status": "draft"})

# Mix text, tag shortcut, and advanced filter
search_notes(
    "oauth flow",
    tags=["security"],
    metadata_filters={"confidence": {"$gt": 0.7}},
)

Merging rules: tags and status are convenience shortcuts merged into metadatafilters via setdefault. If the same key exists in metadatafilters, the explicit filter wins.

Tag Search Shorthand

The tag: prefix in a query converts to a tag filter automatically:

# These are equivalent:
search_notes("tag:tier1")
search_notes("", tags=["tier1"])

# Multiple tags (comma or space separated) — all must match:
search_notes("tag:tier1,alpha")

Example: Custom Frontmatter in Practice

A note with custom fields:

---
title: Auth Design
type: spec
tags: [security, oauth]
status: in-progress
priority: high
confidence: 0.85
---

# Auth Design

## Observations
- [decision] Use OAuth 2.1 with PKCE for all client types #security
- [requirement] Token refresh must be transparent to the user

## Relations
- implements [[Security Requirements]]

Queries that find it:

# By status and type
search_notes(metadata_filters={"status": "in-progress", "type": "spec"})

# By numeric threshold
search_notes(metadata_filters={"confidence": {"$gt": 0.7}})

# By priority set
search_notes(metadata_filters={"priority": {"$in": ["high", "critical"]}})

# By tag shorthand
search_notes("tag:security")

# Combined text + metadata
search_notes("OAuth", metadata_filters={"status": "in-progress"})

Guidelines

• Use metadata search for structured queries. If you're looking for notes by a known field value (status, priority, type), metadata filters are more precise than text search.
• Use text search for content queries. If you're looking for notes about something, text search is better. Combine both when you need precision.
• Custom fields are free. Any YAML key you put in frontmatter becomes queryable — no schema or configuration required.
• Multiple filters are AND. {"status": "active", "priority": "high"} requires both conditions.
• Omit query for filter-only searches. searchnotes(metadatafilters={"status": "active"}) works without a text query.
• Dot notation for nesting. Access nested YAML structures with dots: {"schema.version": "2"} queries the version key inside a schema object.
• Tags shortcut is convenient but limited. tags and status are sugar for common fields. For anything else, use metadata_filters directly.