Time GardenDocumentation
Tweaking Time GardenAdjusting Templates Yourself

Adjusting Templates Yourself

Time Garden’s templates are editable. How to safely modify them to match your needs without breaking the system.

Time Garden's notes don't appear out of thin air — they're generated from a library of templates in 06 Templates/. If you want to change what a daily / weekly / monthly note looks like, this is where you go.

This page is for users comfortable with looking at code (or willing to be).

Folder Structure

06 Templates/
├── Parents/      ← The big templates that build each note
├── Components/   ← Smaller pieces the parents include
├── Scripts/      ← JS code for charts, dataview queries
└── Images/       ← Banner images

You'll do most of your tweaking in Parents and Components.

The Parent Templates

There are exactly five — one per layer:

Parents/Daily.md
Parents/Weekly.md
Parents/Monthly.md
Parents/Quarterly.md
Parents/Yearly.md

Each is a Templater template that includes a series of components to assemble the final note.

For example, the daily template (simplified):

[banner config]
---
[frontmatter: date, alias, dayRating, etc.]
---
# ✧ Monday, April 27, 2026
[[2026-W17|]]                    ← hidden week link

[Daily MetaBindNavBar]            ← navbar
[Daily MetaBindAlias]              ← alias input
---
- (your cursor lands here)

[Daily MetaBindAiButtons]          ← AI buttons
---
### 📁 Pictures
…

You can rearrange, remove, or add sections by editing this file.

Components

A component is a small reusable building block — a navbar, a button bank, a chart-fetching script. Each lives in 06 Templates/Components/ and is included by one or more parent templates.

Highlights of what's there:

ComponentWhat it does
Daily MetaBindNavBar.mdThe navbar at the top of daily notes
Daily MetaBindRating.mdThe rating slider
Daily MetaBindAiButtons.mdThe AI Rate + Alias button
Weekly Rating BarChart.mdThe weekly bar chart
Monthly WheelOfLife.mdThe monthly Wheel of Life chart
Yearly AI Review.mdThe Year-in-Review AI button
New Highlight.md / New Idea.md / New Progress.mdThe Quick Notes inserters

…and roughly 80 more.

Common Customizations

"I never use the Q&A section. Hide it."

In the relevant parent template (e.g., Parents/Daily.md), find the lines that include Daily MetaBindAiQA and delete or comment them out.

Comment out instead of delete.

Surround the include lines with <!-- … --> HTML comments. They'll be invisible but easy to restore.

"I want a custom Quick Note category"

  1. Copy 06 Templates/Components/New Highlight.md and rename to New Gratitude.md
  2. In the new file, change the tag from #highlight to #gratitude
  3. In Parents/Daily.md, find the Quick Notes section and add a button that includes your new component
  4. Optionally: add a Weekly Gratitude.md aggregator (copy Weekly Highlights.md and replace the tag)

"I want a 9th Wheel of Life dimension"

This is more invasive — the dimension list is referenced in the plugin code, the components, and the chart scripts. Renaming an existing dimension is much easier than adding a 9th. Renaming: edit the labels in the Wheel of Life components and your weekly templates' frontmatter.

"I want a different navbar"

Edit the appropriate [Period] MetaBindNavBar.md. Each is a meta-bind-button block — copy/paste a button to add new ones.

How To Apply Changes

Existing notes don't update automatically.

Templates run once at note creation. So changes you make to Parents/Daily.md only show up on future daily notes.

To update an existing note, the simplest thing is to delete it and re-create it (Time Garden will use the new template). Be careful — you'll lose the content you wrote in it. Copy your text out first.

The Scripts Folder

Some Time Garden features (especially charts) are powered by JavaScript files in 06 Templates/Scripts/:

  • Scripts/templater/dataviewjs/ — DataviewJS chart-rendering scripts
  • Scripts/api/ — interfaces with the Time Garden plugin
  • Scripts/operations/ — orchestration code
  • Scripts/services/ — alias, rating, summary, Q&A logic
  • Scripts/utils/ — shared helpers

These are not something most users should edit. But if you're a developer and want to change a chart's color or add a new one, the chart scripts are well-organized and readable.

Backup First

Before any template surgery, copy `06 Templates/` somewhere safe.

If you break a parent template, every newly-created note will fail to generate properly. Having a backup means you can roll back in 10 seconds. (You should also use git, but a literal copy-paste backup works too.)

Things You Should Not Edit

  • The hidden link near the top of each parent template ([[2026-W17|]]-style) — this is what builds the graph view
  • The <p hidden>PicturesEnd</p> markers — these define section boundaries for image aggregation
  • The frontmatter journal:, journal-date:, journal-start-date:, journal-end-date: fields — the Journals plugin uses these
  • The cssclasses: list — the styling depends on these classes

If a tweak feels deep, sleep on it before committing.

Up Next

Understanding the CSS-Snippets

A guide to every CSS snippet that ships with Time Garden — what each one does, what to keep on, what to disable.

Merging Time Garden

How to combine Time Garden’s temporal journaling with an existing Obsidian vault — without losing what you already have.

On this page

Folder StructureThe Parent TemplatesComponentsCommon Customizations"I never use the Q&A section. Hide it.""I want a custom Quick Note category""I want a 9th Wheel of Life dimension""I want a different navbar"How To Apply ChangesThe Scripts FolderBackup FirstThings You Should Not EditUp Next