m
marcus@griep.us
## Summary
Sheet formulas can reference other
sheets'
cells (
=[[sheet]].B5
) and even a note's
body
(
=[[note]].A1
returns the first body line), but they cannot read a note's
frontmatter properties
. This leaves Tolaria's two halves — the atomized note-graph and the spreadsheet — unable to talk to each other for numeric rollups.
## Concrete use case
A home-network vault:
Device
notes carry
poe_consumes_w
in frontmatter; switches carry a
powered_by
relationship. I want a
power budget
that sums each switch's PoE draw across the devices it powers.
*
Views
can filter/sort/display but not aggregate (no
SUM
).
*
Sheets
can aggregate, but can't read the
poe_consumes_w
that lives in each device's frontmatter.
So today the only options are (a) duplicate the watts into a sheet by hand (drifts out of sync), or (b) have an AI agent periodically recompute a
poe_load_w
field on each switch note. Both work, but a native bridge would be far cleaner — and this generalizes to any inventory, budget, or rollup built on atomized notes.
## Current behavior (verified in v2026.7.1)
| Formula | Result |
| ----------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
|
=1+1
|
2
(engine OK) |
|
=[[a-sheet]].B1
|
42
(cross-sheet cell reference works) |
|
=[[a-note]].A1
| the note's body line 1 (body is reachable) |
|
=[[a-note]].poe_consumes_w
|
#ERROR!
|
|
=selfprop
(the sheet's own frontmatter) |
#NAME?
|
## Proposed
Any of the following, in rough order of value:
  1. Read one note's property
    — e.g.
    =NOTEPROP([[udm-pro-max]], "poe_consumes_w")
    , or extend the dotted syntax to frontmatter:
    =[[udm-pro-max]].fm.poe_consumes_w
    .
  2. Aggregate a property over a query or saved view
    (the real win) — e.g.
=SUMPROP("type:Device AND powered_by:[[main-switch]]", "poe_consumes_w")
,
or a query-range that
SUM
/
AVERAGE
/
COUNT
can consume:
=SUM(VIEW("switch-devices").poe_consumes_w)
.
## Relationship to existing requests
Distinct from
"support to table-based views"
(
/feature-requests/p/support-to-table-based-views
), which concerns
rendering views as columnar tables
(presentation). This request is about
spreadsheet formulas computing over note frontmatter
— aggregation/rollups — and is needed regardless of how views render. A table-rendered view still would not
SUM
a frontmatter value across matching notes.
## Prior art
Obsidian Dataview (
TABLE sum(rows.x)
), Obsidian Bases (
summaries: Sum
), and Notion rollups all provide "aggregate a property across a set of records." This is a well-trodden pattern and a common ask when migrating a data-heavy vault into Tolaria.
## Docs referenced
*
/guides/use-spreadsheets
*
/reference/spreadsheet-format
— "Cross-sheet references currently resolve single cells."
*
/reference/view-filters