Contact Note

An Obsidian plugin that renders visual contact cards from frontmatter in designated contact notes, with a searchable and filterable contact list view.

Features

• Renders a contact card in reading mode for any note identified as a contact
• Sidebar contact list view with search, alphabet filter, and condensed mode
• Create new contacts from the list view with an auto-generated frontmatter template
• Enforces file naming in First [Middle] Last format automatically
• Supports multiple emails, phone numbers, and social media profiles per contact
• Default list filters based on any frontmatter property
• Contacts identified by folder or tag

Installation

Obsidian Community Plugins

1. Open Obsidian and go to Settings → Community plugins.
2. If restricted mode is on, click Turn on community plugins.
3. Click Browse and search for Contact Note.
4. Click Install, then Enable.

Manual

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. In your vault, create the folder .obsidian/plugins/contact-note/ if it does not already exist.
3. Copy the downloaded files into that folder.
4. Open Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins, and enable Contact Note.

Usage

Identifying contact notes

A note is treated as a contact note in one of two ways, configured in settings:

• By folder: any note inside a specified folder (e.g. Contacts/) is a contact note.
• By tag: any note tagged with a specified tag (e.g. #contact) is a contact note.

Creating a contact

To manually create a new contact, create a new note with at least the firstName and lastName frontmatter properties in either the path of contact notes or with the contact tag specified in the plugin settings. For a list of all frontmatter properties recognized by the plugin, see Frontmatter reference below.

To create a new contact using the plugin's template, click the + button in the top-right corner of the contact list view to open the new contact dialog. Enter a first and last name and click Create.

A new note will be created with a pre-populated frontmatter template and opened automatically.

Contact card

In reading mode, any contact note with a valid firstName and lastName frontmatter renders a contact card in place of the frontmatter block. The card displays the contact's photo, name, title, company, email addresses, phone numbers, and social media profiles.

Frontmatter reference

All fields are optional except firstName and lastName.

Field	Type	Description
firstName	string	Required. The contact's first name.
lastName	string	Required. The contact's last name.
middleName	string	Middle name or initial. Used in the display name and file name.
displayName	string	Overrides the resolved display name everywhere if set.
title	string	Job title or role.
company	string	Company or organization name.
email	string or list	One or more email addresses.
phone	string or list	One or more phone numbers.
photo	string	Vault path to a photo file (e.g. Attachments/jane.jpg).
aliases	list	Obsidian aliases for the note. Pre-populated with firstName on creation. Not used directly by plugin for contact list view.
socials	list	List of social media handles. See Socials below.

Example:

---
firstName: Jane
middleName: A.
lastName: Smith
displayName:
company: Acme Corp
title: Engineer
email:
  - jane@example.com
phone:
  - +1 555 000 0000
photo: Attachments/jane.jpg
aliases:
  - Jane
socials:
  - github: janesmith
  - linkedin: jane-smith
---

Display name resolution

The display name is resolved in the following order:

1. displayName if set
2. firstName + middleName + lastName

File naming

The plugin automatically renames contact notes to match the format First [Middle] Last whenever the firstName, middleName, or lastName frontmatter values change. Manual renames are also corrected.

If a file with the target name already exists, the rename is skipped and a notice is shown. Add a middle name to disambiguate.

Socials

Social profiles are defined as a list of single-key objects under the socials frontmatter field. The key is the platform name and the value is the handle (the @ prefix is optional).

socials:
  - twitter: janesmith
  - github: janesmith
  - linkedin: jane-smith

Supported platforms:

Platform	Key
Bluesky	bluesky
Discord	discord
Facebook	facebook
GitHub	github
Instagram	instagram
LinkedIn	linkedin
Pinterest	pinterest
Reddit	reddit
Snapchat	snapchat
Telegram	telegram
TikTok	tiktok
Twitch	twitch
Twitter / X	twitter
YouTube	youtube

Platforms not in this list will still display the handle as plain text without a link.

Contact list view

Open the contact list view from the ribbon icon or the Open contact list command.

Search

Click the search icon in the header to show the search bar. The search filters by first name, last name, middle name, and display name.

Alphabet filter

Click any letter in the alphabet bar to filter contacts whose last name starts with that letter. Click the same letter again to clear the filter.

Settings reference

Contact File Identification

Setting	Description	Default
Identify contacts by folder	When enabled, notes inside the specified folder are treated as contacts. When disabled, notes with the specified tag are used instead.	Enabled
Contacts folder path	Path to the contacts folder, relative to the vault root.	Contacts
Contact tag	Tag used to identify contact notes (without the #). Only shown when folder mode is disabled.	contact

Contact List

Setting	Description	Default
Contact list title	Title shown at the top of the contact list view.	Contacts
Show last name first in list	When enabled, names in the list are shown as Last, First Middle. Does not affect the contact card.	Enabled
Condensed list view	When enabled, each card in the list shows only the photo and name.	Enabled

Default List Filters

Add one or more filter conditions to limit which contacts appear in the list view. All conditions must match for a contact to be shown (AND logic).

Each condition targets a frontmatter property by key and supports the following operators:

Operator	Value required	Description
Contains	Yes	Property value contains the given string, or array includes a matching item.
Is	Yes	Property value exactly equals the given string.
Exists	No	Property is present and has a non-empty value.
Is true	No	Property value is true (boolean or string).
Is false	No	Property value is false (boolean or string).

Filters apply to any frontmatter property, including custom fields not used by the plugin.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue to discuss significant changes before submitting a pull request.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v24 or later recommended)
• A local Obsidian vault for testing

Setup

1. Clone or fork the repository into your vault's plugin folder:

   <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/contact-note/
   

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install
   

3. Start the development build (watches for changes and rebuilds automatically):

   npm run dev
   

4. In Obsidian, go to Settings → Community plugins, disable and re-enable Contact Note to pick up the rebuilt main.js.

   Tip: The Hot Reload community plugin can reload the plugin automatically on file change.

Linting

npm run lint

ESLint 10 with eslint-plugin-obsidianmd is configured via eslint.config.mjs. Run lint before submitting a pull request.

Production build

npm run build

This runs a TypeScript type-check (tsc) followed by an optimized esbuild bundle. The output is main.js in the project root. The files needed for a release are main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css.

Project structure

Path	Description
src/main.ts	Plugin entry point: settings, commands, event handlers
src/Contact.ts	Contact data model parsed from note frontmatter
src/ContactCard.ts	Builds the contact card DOM element
src/ContactListView.ts	Sidebar list view
src/ContactNoteSettingTab.ts	Settings tab UI
styles.css	All plugin styles

License

GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE for details.