Docs/Settings/Object Types

Object Types

An object type describes a kind of note — what fields it has, what icon it wears, how it looks in a gallery. This is where you see the types your project has and change them. Minerva ships a handful to start with, you can add your own, and you can adjust the built-in ones to suit how you actually work.

What you'll see

Every type in your project, one per row: its icon, its name, how many fields it declares, and how many notes are currently of that kind. A label on each row tells you where it came from:

stock
One of the ten types Minerva ships with — Article, Book, Claim, Event, Glossary Term, Idea, Meeting, Person, Place, Project — exactly as it comes.
customized
A stock type you've changed. Your version lives in this project and is what's actually used; the original is kept so you can go back to it.
user
A type you created yourself, either here or from a note.

Changing a type

Edit opens the type's definition. Everything about it is here in one dialog:

Name
What this kind of thing is called, wherever it's shown.
Icon
The character that marks notes of this type in every list. On macOS the ☺ button opens the system emoji picker; you can also paste or type one.
Color
Tints the icon. Pick from the swatches beside the field, use the color well for anything else, or type a hex value. The × clears it.
Fields
The properties notes of this type are expected to have. Each one has a name and a kind — text, number, date, a date and time (datetime), a fixed list of choices (enum), a link to another note (link-to-type), a location (geo), or a yes/no checkbox (boolean). Add, remove, and reorder them; the order is the order they appear in on a note.
Card
Tick a field to include it on the card shown when another note links to this one on a line of its own — see Links.
Cover
Which field holds an image, for the gallery view and for cards.
Parent type
A more general type this one is a kind of. It inherits the parent's fields, and counts as one of the parent wherever they're gathered.
External class (advanced)
Optional. Names a class from a standard vocabulary — foaf:Person, say — that notes of this type should also count as in your project's graph, so a query written in that vocabulary finds them too. Leave it empty and nothing changes.
The type editor dialog for the stock Place type: its name, icon and color at the top, a list of fields with a kind chosen for each, the cover, parent type and external class boxes, and the default note body with placeholder buttons beneath it and a preview of how a new note starts.
Screenshot — the type editor for Place, with its fields and default body

Kinds of field

A field's kind decides what control it gets in the Properties panel, and what Minerva can do with its values.

text, number, date
A text box, a number box, or a date picker.
datetime
A date with a time of day, so events on the same day can be put in order. Type it as 2026-10-05T14:30 (seconds are optional), or use the ▾ button beside the field to pick one. It can also hold just a date, a month or a year — 2026-10-05, 2026-10, 1969 — which then means that whole stretch of time, so changing a date field to datetime never breaks a note. A time is read as local time wherever the note is opened; add an offset (2026-10-05T14:30+02:00, or Z for UTC) to pin it to a time zone. Views show it in your own date format, with the time only when there is one. The stock Event type's date and end are datetime fields.
enum
A fixed list of choices. Type the options into the box beside the kind, separated by commas, and the field becomes a dropdown of exactly those.
link-to-type
A link to another note, written as [[Note]]. The box beside the kind sets which type the linked note should be — a Project's owner is a Person — or (any type) to allow any note.
geo
A location, written as latitude and longitude separated by a comma — 48.8584,2.2945. In the Properties panel it's a plain text box. A type with a location field can also be shown as a map. The stock Place type has one.

Most kinds also have a small predicate box beside them. Like External class, it's optional and only matters for queries: it stores that field under a property from a standard vocabulary instead of Minerva's own — the stock Person type keeps its email under foaf:mbox. Leave it empty and the field works the same as any other.

Bridges in the stock types

A few built-in types use these already. Person counts as a foaf:Person. Claim and Glossary Term count as the Claim and Term of Minerva's thought vocabulary, so a Claim note is found by everything that looks for claims, and Article and Book map to its Article and Book. You never need to touch any of this to use them.

Default note body

A type can give every new note of its kind a starting body: the headings you always want, and blanks for the details. Write it under Default note body in the type's dialog. The buttons below the box insert a placeholder for each of the type's fields, plus the note's title, today's date, and where the cursor should land. Underneath, a preview shows how a new note starts.

{{title}}
The new note's title.
{{date}}, {{time}}
Today's date and the current time, when the note is created.
{{cursor}}
Where your cursor lands in the new note. The placeholder itself disappears.
{{prompt:Label}}
Asks you for a value, under that label, when you create the note.
{{name}}
The value of the type's field called name — see below.
{{prop:name}}
The same, for a field whose name clashes with one of the placeholders above. Event and Meeting both have a date field: {{date}} is always today, so write {{prop:date}} for the date of the event.
Placeholders fill themselves in
Write Address: {{address}}, and when the note's address field gets a value — as you create the note, later in the Properties panel, or when you approve a suggestion from the assistant — the placeholder is replaced with it. Until then it stays in the note as {{address}}, a reminder of what's still to fill.
Filled once
After a placeholder is filled, the text is yours: changing the field later doesn't rewrite it.
Inherited
A type with no body of its own uses its parent type's, and the dialog shows which one. Write a body to replace it.
The assistant uses it
When the assistant drafts a note of a type, it starts from that type's default body and fills in what it knows.

Adjusting a built-in type

The stock types are a starting point, not a fixed set. If Book should track which shelf it's on, edit Book and add the field — no need to build your own near-copy.

Saving keeps a customized copy of that type in this project, which then shadows the built-in one. Your existing notes are unaffected: they're still Books, still found by everything that looks for Books. Only the definition changed.

Revert
Appears on a customized type and puts the built-in definition back, discarding your changes to it. The notes using the type are left alone — the type still exists, it's just standard again.
The name stays fixed
A built-in type keeps its name, even once customized. If you want a differently-named kind of thing, duplicate it — that gives you a type of your own that you can name freely.

Adding your own

New type
Starts an empty definition. A name is all it needs; fields, icon, and the rest are optional and can be added later.
Duplicate
Copies any type, built-in or not, as a new one of your own named "… copy". A quick way to start from something close to what you want.
From a note
File → Save Note as Object Type builds a type out of a note you've already written, taking its properties as the fields.
With the assistant
Analysis → Organization → Create an Object Type opens a conversation where you describe what you want to track, and the assistant designs a type with you — fields, icon, an optional parent — checking first that you don't already have one like it. It can also suggest changes to an existing type. Nothing is created or changed until you approve it in the Proposals panel.

Renaming and deleting

Your own types can also be renamed and deleted. Both take care of the notes that use them:

Rename
Updates every note of that type to match, so nothing is left pointing at a name that no longer exists. If some notes can't be updated, the old type is kept rather than leaving them orphaned, and you're told.
Delete
Tells you how many notes still use the type, then offers to remove the type: line from them as well. Decline and they keep it — it simply won't resolve to anything, which is easy to undo either way.
Types travel with the project

Your types and your customizations are stored inside the project itself, not on your machine. Open the same project elsewhere and they come with it; a different project has its own vocabulary.

A note takes on a type through its properties — see Typed notes. To browse your project by type, use the Objects panel. To fill in a typed note's fields, use the Properties panel.