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 — for example when feeding a note into an LLM context or rendering it in a downstream tool.
Synopsis
smolbren get <id> [--body]
Arguments and flags
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. 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.
.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 |
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 |
--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
{
"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
}
}
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.