Objects

An Object is the fundamental building block of a TypeMD knowledge base. Everything you track — books, people, ideas, projects — is an Object.

What is an Object?

An Object is a Markdown file with two parts:

• Frontmatter — YAML metadata at the top (system properties like name and timestamps, plus schema-defined properties)
• Body — free-form Markdown content (notes, thoughts, references)

---
name: Go in Action
created_at: "2026-03-09T10:30:00+08:00"
updated_at: "2026-03-11T18:00:00+08:00"
status: reading
rating: 4.5
author: person/alan-donovan-01jqr3k5mpbvn8e0f2g7h9txyz
---

# Notes

A great book about Go concurrency patterns.

See also: [[note/go-concurrency-patterns]]

Name is not filename

An Object’s display name (name property) is independent of its filename. The filename is a stable storage identifier (slug + ULID); the name is a human-readable label that can contain spaces, mixed casing, and special characters.

This decoupling means you can rename an Object without moving files, and auto-generate names from templates (e.g., 日記 2026-03-14) without worrying about filesystem constraints.

Object ID

Every Object has an ID in the format type/slug-ulid, for example:

book/golang-in-action-01jqr3k5mpbvn8e0f2g7h9txyz

Part	Description
book	The Type this Object belongs to
golang-in-action	The Slug — a human-readable name
01jqr3k5mpbvn8e0f2g7h9txyz	The ULID — a unique identifier

The ULID is automatically appended when you use tmd object create. If you create files manually, the ULID is optional — TypeMD is backward compatible with plain slugs.

Objects are not files

In most note-taking tools, you organize knowledge by putting files into folders. In TypeMD, you organize knowledge by giving Objects a Type and connecting them with Relations.

The file system is just a storage layer. A book Object and a person Object can reference each other regardless of where they sit in the directory tree. The structure comes from your data model, not your folder hierarchy.

Where Objects live

Objects are stored under the objects/ directory in your Vault, organized by Type:

objects/
├── book/
│   ├── golang-in-action-01jqr3k5mpbvn8e0f2g7h9txyz.md
│   └── designing-data-intensive-applications-01jqr4m7npcwo9f3g8h0jtuyab.md
├── person/
│   └── alan-donovan-01jqr3k5mpbvn8e0f2g7h9txyz.md
└── note/
    └── go-concurrency-patterns-01jqr5n8oqdxp0g4h1i2kuvabc.md

Each Type has its own subdirectory. This keeps the file system tidy, but the real organization happens through Types and Relations.