NanoFile

Markdown front matter

Front matter is metadata at the very top of a markdown file, fenced by three dashes above and below. Static site generators, Obsidian and most note tools read it; a plain renderer ignores it or, worse, prints it.

Front matter
---
title: Opening .md files
date: 2026-08-27
tags:
  - markdown
  - tools
draft: false
---

# The document starts here

title: Opening .md files date: 2026-08-27 tags: - markdown - tools draft: false

The document starts here

This viewer lifts front matter out of the document and shows it as a metadata card, which is why a file with front matter does not open here with a stray horizontal rule and an enormous heading.

What usually goes wrong

  • It must be the very first thing in the file. One blank line above it and it stops being front matter and becomes a horizontal rule followed by a heading.
  • YAML is whitespace-sensitive and cares about tabs. Use spaces.
  • A value containing a colon needs quotes: title: "Markdown: a history".
  • Different tools expect different keys. Hugo, Jekyll, Astro and Obsidian all read front matter, and none of them agree on what goes in it.

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