smolbren get — fetch a single note by ID

The get command fetches a single note from the index by its ID and returns its metadata as a JSON object. By default it returns everything except the body text, keeping the response compact. Add --body when you need the full Markdown content. Use --format text when a shell pipeline needs the raw Markdown without JSON decoding.

Synopsis

smolbren get <id> [--body] [--format json|text]

Arguments and flags

string

required

The note’s vault-relative ID. This is the path to the .md file relative to the vault root, with the .md extension removed and directory separators preserved. See Note ID format below.

string

default:"json"

Choose json for the normal structured response or text for the raw Markdown body. Text mode fetches the body even if --body is omitted.

boolean

Include the note’s full Markdown body text in the response under the body field. The body is the raw Markdown content of the file, with frontmatter stripped. Omitting --body keeps the response small when you only need metadata.

Note ID format

A note’s ID is its vault-relative path without the .md extension. Given a vault rooted at /Users/alice/notes:

File path	Note ID
`/Users/alice/notes/blogs/context-engineering.md`	`blogs/context-engineering`
`/Users/alice/notes/projects/prism.md`	`projects/prism`
`/Users/alice/notes/Journal/2026, June 01.md`	`Journal/2026, June 01`

IDs are case-sensitive and preserve the original directory casing from your vault. You can discover IDs from search, query, links, and backlinks output — they all use the same id field.

Output fields

Without --body — returns metadata only:

Field	Type	Description
`id`	string	Vault-relative note ID
`path`	string	Vault-relative file path including `.md`
`type`	string \| null	The note’s frontmatter `type` value, or `null` if absent
`title`	string	The note’s title, derived from the first `# Heading` or the filename
`frontmatter`	object \| null	The note’s full frontmatter parsed into a JSON object. All frontmatter keys and values are included. `null` if the note has no frontmatter

With --body — all of the above, plus:

Field	Type	Description
`body`	string	The full Markdown body text with frontmatter stripped

Examples

Fetch metadata only (default)

smolbren get blogs/context-engineering

Stream the raw Markdown body

smolbren get blogs/context-engineering --body --format text

# Context engineering

The full markdown body of the note...

{
  "id": "blogs/context-engineering",
  "path": "blogs/context-engineering.md",
  "type": "blog",
  "title": "Context engineering",
  "frontmatter": {
    "type": "blog",
    "created": "2026-05-10",
    "updated": "2026-06-30",
    "status": "draft",
    "for": "[[orgs/junaid-foo]]",
    "mentions": ["[[projects/prism]]", "[[repos/smolbren]]"],
    "merged_from": ["[[blogs/context-development-lifecycle]]", "[[blogs/context-platform-engineering]]"],
    "derives_from": ["[[Journal/2026, June 01]]", "[[Journal/2026, June 04]]"],
    "published_url": "",
    "published_at": null
  }
}

Fetch with full body text

smolbren get blogs/context-engineering --body

{
  "id": "blogs/context-engineering",
  "path": "blogs/context-engineering.md",
  "type": "blog",
  "title": "Context engineering",
  "frontmatter": {
    "type": "blog",
    "status": "draft"
  },
  "body": "# Context engineering\n\nThe full markdown body of the note...\n"
}

get automatically parses the frontmatter and returns it as a plain JSON object under the key frontmatter — you never need to double-parse it. If a note has no frontmatter block, frontmatter is null.

Commands

Output & Errors

smolbren get — fetch a single note by ID

Synopsis

Arguments and flags

Note ID format

Output fields

Examples

​Synopsis

​Arguments and flags

​Note ID format

​Output fields

​Examples

Synopsis

Arguments and flags

Note ID format

Output fields

Examples