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Trail

Add typed relations to your notes and traverse them via a powerful hierarchy view.

Trail is an Obsidian plugin that lets you create meaningful connections between your notes using named relations like up, down, next, and prev—or any custom relations you define. Instead of relying on generic backlinks, Trail gives you semantic relationships that you can visualize and navigate through a dedicated pane.

Why Trail?

Obsidian's built-in backlinks show you that notes are connected, but not how they're connected. Trail changes that:

  • Semantic relationships: Define what each link means—is it a parent? A child? The next chapter?
  • Automatic inference: Set up implied relations so A -up-> B automatically creates B -down-> A
  • Flexible syntax: Add relations inline with :: syntax or in frontmatter
  • Powerful visualization: Browse hierarchies, filter by relation type, and see the full context of any note

Quick Example

Say you're building a family tree. With Trail, you can write:

---
relations:
  parent:
    - "[[Alice]]"
    - "[[Bob]]"
---

# Charlie

up::[[Alice]]

Open the Trail pane, and you'll see Charlie's full ancestry—Alice and Bob as parents, and their parents above them.

Key Features

  • Named Relations

    Create semantic links with custom relation types. Go beyond generic backlinks to capture how notes relate.

    Learn syntax

  • Implied Relations

    Define rules like "up implies down in reverse" so you only need to link once. Trail infers the rest.

    Configure implied relations

  • Relation Groups

    Organize relations into visual groups like "Ancestors" or "Siblings" with custom filtering and sorting.

    Set up groups

  • Smart Filtering

    Filter relations by properties. Show different groups based on the active note's type.

    Explore filtering

  • Query Language

    Write powerful TQL queries with filtering, sorting, date arithmetic, and more.

    Learn TQL

Getting Started

Ready to add structure to your vault? Start with the Getting Started guide to install Trail and create your first relations in under 5 minutes.

Support

If you find Trail useful, consider buying me a coffee

Documentation Overview

Section Description
Getting Started Install and create your first relation
Syntax Inline, frontmatter, and query language reference
Configuration Relations, groups, filters, and sorting
Usage Using the Trail pane
Concepts How Trail works under the hood
Examples Real-world use cases
Reference Default configuration and relation types