TypeMD 0.3.0 — Your Objects, Your Rules

If 0.2.0 was about “defining types for your properties,” 0.3.0 is about “defining rules for your vault.”

Last release, you could describe what fields a book has and what types they are. This release, you can tell TypeMD: “book names can’t repeat,” “journals should be named by date automatically,” “every new book review starts with this template.” You write the rules, TypeMD enforces them.

Object templates: start every object in the right place

Tired of manually setting status: draft and pasting the same Markdown structure every time you create a book review? That’s over.

Drop a Markdown file in templates/<type>/ with your desired frontmatter defaults and body skeleton:

# templates/book/review.md
---
status: to-read
---

## Why I Want to Read This

## Notes

It gets applied automatically when creating an object:

tmd object create book "Clean Code" --template review

If a type has only one template, you don’t even need --template — it applies automatically. Multiple templates? You’ll be prompted to choose.

Templates can override user-editable system properties (name, description), but created_at and updated_at are system-managed — template values for those are ignored.

Name templates: let TypeMD name things for you

Some objects have predictable names. A daily journal is just “Journal 2026-03-14.” A meeting note is “Meeting 2026-03-14.” Typing that out every time is tedious and error-prone.

Now you can define a name template in your type schema:

name: journal
properties:
  - name: name
    template: "Journal {{ date:YYYY-MM-DD }}"

Create an object without providing a name, and TypeMD fills it in. You can always specify one manually to override.

Unique constraint: prevent duplicates

Add unique: true to a type schema, and no two objects of that type can share the same name:

name: person
unique: true

The first person/john-doe is fine. The second gets rejected. Different types are independent — person/john-doe and character/john-doe can coexist.

tmd type validate also gained tag name uniqueness checking. Tags are inherently unique, and the validator catches duplicates for you.

Plural display names

Type schemas now support a plural field:

name: book
plural: books

Wherever a collection label is needed (like TUI group headers), TypeMD uses books instead of book. A small touch, but it reads better every time.

System properties: things TypeMD manages for you

Starting with 0.3.0, every object automatically has five system properties:

Property	Description	Editable?
name	Display name	Yes
description	Description text	Yes
created_at	Creation time	No (set automatically)
updated_at	Last update time	No (updated automatically)
tags	Tags (linked to built-in tag type)	Yes

These properties don’t need to be — and can’t be — defined in type schemas. They’re reserved names. If your schema manually defines description, created_at, updated_at, or tags, validation will fail after upgrading. Remove them first.

Tags are a brand new built-in type. Reference a non-existent tag in an object’s frontmatter, and the tag object gets created automatically during sync.

Goodbye, built-in types

In 0.2.0, new vaults came with book, person, and note pre-installed. We found that these defaults confused new users more than they helped — “Are these required? Can I delete them?”

The answer is: your vault, your types. In 0.3.0, all default types are removed. tmd init now creates a clean, empty vault. The only built-in type that remains is tag, since it’s the foundation of the tagging system.

If you’re already using book, person, or note — don’t worry. Your objects and type schemas are unaffected. New vaults just won’t come with them anymore.

TUI type editor

Previously, editing type schemas meant opening YAML files by hand. Now, navigate to any type header in the TUI sidebar and you’ll enter a visual type editor:

• Browse the property list with type, emoji, pin, and other metadata at a glance
• Add properties with full configuration — name, type, emoji, pin, and more
• Edit any field of existing properties
• Delete properties (with confirmation)
• Reorder properties by moving them up and down

No leaving the TUI. No remembering YAML syntax.

Upgrade

brew upgrade typemd/tap/typemd-cli

Or grab a pre-built binary from GitHub Releases.

Before upgrading:

1. Remove any manually defined description, created_at, updated_at, or tags properties from your type schemas
2. Run tmd type validate to confirm everything is clean

What’s next

0.4.0 is about “moving in” — vault health checks (tmd doctor), continuous validation (tmd type validate --watch), and a better TUI creation experience. Making your vault comfortable for daily use.

If you have any questions or ideas, open an issue — we read them all.