Getting Started with Hierarchies

Breadcrumbs is built around a simple idea: links between notes can have a type. That type is called an edge field, and it’s what turns a flat web of connections into a navigable hierarchy. This guide walks you through creating your first hierarchy from scratch — from understanding the default fields, to adding your first typed link, to seeing the result in the Matrix View and Trail View.

flowchart BT
	C1(Jazz) & C2(Classical) & C3(Electronic) -->|up| P(Music Genres)

REQUIREMENTS

Breadcrumbs 4.15.0+ requires Obsidian 1.13.0 or later. On Obsidian 1.12, stay on Breadcrumbs 4.14.2 (maintained on the 1.12-compat branch).

Steps

1. Understand Edge Fields

Edge Fields are the names you give to the relationships between notes. Every link you add through Breadcrumbs uses one of these field names as its “type”.

Out of the box, Breadcrumbs ships with five default fields:

Field	Direction	Typical meaning
up	Up	This note belongs to a parent note
down	Down	This note contains child notes
same	Same	This note is a sibling of another note
next	Next	This note comes after another note
prev	Prev	This note comes before another note

These defaults are intentionally generic, and they’re a great place to start. up and down alone are enough to build a complete topic hierarchy.

TIP

When to keep the defaults: If your vault is primarily one type of content — notes, ideas, topics — the defaults work well. up:: [[My MOC]] is perfectly clear.

When to rename them: Once you have multiple kinds of hierarchy in the same vault, more specific names prevent confusion. The Layered Daily Notes guide uses month and year instead of plain up, so there’s no ambiguity about which “up” is meant.

You can view and edit your fields under Settings > Edge Fields.

2. Create the Example Notes

For this guide, we’ll build a small music-genre hierarchy. Create four notes:

• Music Genres — the top-level MOC (Map of Content)
• Jazz
• Classical
• Electronic

You don’t need any content in them yet.

3. Add Your First Typed Link

Open the Jazz note and add an up field pointing to Music Genres. You can use either the YAML frontmatter or a Dataview inline field — both work identically.

Frontmatter (YAML)

---
up: "[[Music Genres]]"
---

Inline field (Dataview-style syntax; no Dataview plugin required)

up:: [[Music Genres]]

Now do the same for Classical and Electronic. Each of the three child notes should have up: "[[Music Genres]]" in its frontmatter (or as a Dataview field).

INFO

In the language of Breadcrumbs, you’ve just used the typed-link edge builder to add three explicit edges, each using the up edge field.

4. Rebuild the Graph

Adding typed links to your notes doesn’t automatically update what Breadcrumbs knows. You need to tell it to re-read your vault.

Run the Breadcrumbs: Rebuild Graph command (open the command palette with Cmd/Ctrl+P and search for “Rebuild Graph”).

NOTE

This is the most common first-time stumbling block. If you don’t see your new edges in any view, rebuilding the graph is almost always the fix.

5. Open the Matrix View

With one of the child notes open (e.g. Jazz), run the Breadcrumbs: Open Matrix View command.

You’ll see the Matrix View appear in the sidebar. Under the up section, it should show [[Music Genres]]. That’s your edge — the link from Jazz up to its parent MOC.

Now switch to the Music Genres note. The Matrix View will flip to the perspective of that note, and under down you’ll see all three child notes listed: Jazz, Classical, and Electronic.

TIP

The down edges weren’t added manually — Breadcrumbs infers them automatically as the opposite of the up edges you added. This is the implied edges system at work.

6. Open the Trail View

The Trail View appears at the top of each note and shows all paths going up from the current note. Open any of the three child notes and you should see a trail leading back to Music Genres.

INFO

The Trail View reads right-to-left. The right-most entry is the immediate neighbour of the current note; entries further left are further away in the hierarchy. It works like a file path in a file explorer.

Enable or disable the Trail View under Settings > Views > Page > Trail > Enable.

The Full Picture

Here’s the complete structure you’ve just built:

flowchart BT
	C1(Jazz) -->|up| P(Music Genres)
	C2(Classical) -->|up| P
	C3(Electronic) -->|up| P
	P -->|down| C1
	P -->|down| C2
	P -->|down| C3

The up edges were added explicitly via Typed Links. The down edges back from Music Genres to each child were added automatically by Breadcrumbs as implied edges.

Common First-Time Mistakes

Forgetting to rebuild the graph Changes to your notes are not picked up until you run Rebuild Graph. If a new edge isn’t showing up, this is the first thing to check. You can also configure Breadcrumbs to rebuild automatically on save under Settings > Commands > Rebuild Graph > Triggers.

Linking to a note that doesn’t exist If you type up: "[[Musci Genres]]" (a typo), Breadcrumbs will create an edge to a non-existent note. The Matrix View will show the link, but clicking it will prompt you to create the note. Check your spelling, then rebuild.

Using the wrong field name If you write parent: "[[Music Genres]]" but parent isn’t in your Edge Fields settings, Breadcrumbs will silently ignore the link. Always make sure the field name in your note matches exactly what’s listed under Settings > Edge Fields.

Expecting both directions to be explicit You only need to add the up link in the child note. You do not need to also add a down link in the parent — Breadcrumbs infers it. Adding both manually is redundant and can cause duplicates in the Matrix View.

Next Steps

Once you’re comfortable with a basic hierarchy, consider:

• Renaming the generic fields to something more meaningful for your vault, as shown in the Layered Daily Notes guide
• Modelling relationships between people using the Personal Relationship Management guide
• Using a codeblock in your Music Genres MOC note to auto-generate a list of all child notes