Search by Property
vault_search_by_propertySearch notes by frontmatter property value. Exact match for scalar properties; checks array elements. Narrow by folder. Returns metadata sorted by modification time.
Instructions
Find notes where a frontmatter property matches a value — metadata-only search, no text query needed. Handles both scalar properties (status: "active") and array properties (tags, related): for arrays, matches if any element equals the value (contains check, not exact array match). Matching is exact and case-sensitive; an unknown key or unmatched value returns an empty array, not an error.
Example: vault_search_by_property({ key: "status", value: "in-progress" }) Example: vault_search_by_property({ key: "type", value: "session-log", folder: "Code Projects" })
When to use: Finding notes by metadata when you don't have a text query. Prefer vault_search when you also have a text query (it supports property filters too). Prefer vault_search_by_tag for tag-specific queries (supports hierarchical prefix matching). Use vault_list_property_keys to discover valid keys and vault_list_property_values to see what values a key takes.
Parameters:
key + value are both exact and case-sensitive — no partial matching or globbing. All property values are compared as strings, so numeric or boolean properties must be passed as their string representation.
For array properties (tags, related), value is tested against each element individually (contains check) — "blog" matches a note with tags: ["blog", "draft"] but not tags: ["my-blog"].
folder narrows results to a subtree; omit for vault-wide search. Combined with key+value, this lets you check how a property is used within a specific area.
Returns: JSON array of note metadata (path, title, tags, related, folder, type, created, modified, bytes, leading_callout?, additional_properties), sorted by filesystem mtime descending — recently-synced notes may sort ahead of older content edits.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| key | Yes | Property key name (e.g. "status", "type", "tags"). Use vault_list_property_keys to discover valid keys. | |
| limit | No | Max results (default 20). Increase for broad metadata queries. | |
| value | Yes | Value to match (exact, case-sensitive, e.g. "active", "session-log"). Use vault_list_property_values to discover valid values for a key. | |
| folder | No | Restrict to a folder prefix (e.g. "Projects") |