Settings reference

Settings (2026-07-11 redesign) open on a hub, not a wall of fields. A start-here launchpad sits at the top, followed by a grid of section cards — each card shows a one-line glimpse of its current values, and opening a card shows the full controls plus a live preview built from your actual settings (a folder tree, a sample frontmatter block, a path chip). All copy uses plain language instead of internal terminology, per the project’s README / user-facing surfaces convention.

This page lists every setting by section, in the same order they appear in the hub.

Status last verified: 2026-10-03 — the Fast query index row re-checked against src/settings/settings-tab.ts and the real-Obsidian run of tests/e2e/tier2-vfs-probe.spec.ts. Earlier: 2026-09-14 — verified against src/settings/settings-tab.ts (stack confirmation row added 2026-09-28) and src/import/import-preset-guide.ts

Launchpad

Three first-class actions above the section grid, not buried in a card:

Action	What it does
Import structured data	Opens the import wizard
Manage saved configs	Opens the config browser
Resume a draft	Only shown when draft auto-save is on (Drafts); opens the wizard’s Step 1 draft picker

Below the actions sits Browse built-in import presets, a collapsible list of the 12 presets (source: src/import/recipe-registry.ts) Crosswalker recognizes on sight. Each entry gives the preset’s name, one line on what it produces, a link to the publisher’s download page, and a “How to import it” link into the framework data sources guide. Some entries add a short note, for example that the publisher asks you to register before downloading. The same guide appears on the workspace tab’s launchpad and at the top of Step 1 of the import wizard, so it is there wherever you start an import.

Output

Setting	Default	Description
Default output folder	Ontologies	Where new imports are created. Each import can override this in the wizard. Autocompletes against your vault’s folders.

Live preview: a folder tree showing where a note would land under the current path.

Naming

Setting	Default	Options
Property key style	Snake case	As is, Lowercase, Snake case, Camel case, Kebab case
Nested properties	Keep flat	Keep flat, Nest by dots, Group by prefix — how a dotted column name like source.id becomes frontmatter

Live preview: a sample property key and a sample frontmatter block reflecting the current choices.

Cell values

Setting	Default	Options
Multiple values in one cell	Keep as a list	Keep as a list, Keep as text, Take the first, Take the last, Join with a delimiter
Empty cells	Leave the property out	Leave the property out, Write an empty string, Write null, Use a default value

Live preview: sample frontmatter for both settings.

Links between notes

Setting	Default	Options
Link style	Standard	Simple, Standard, Full (with a predicate), Custom
Link property prefix	crosswalker	Used by the Full and Custom link styles to name the link property

Live preview: sample frontmatter showing the resulting link syntax.

Import behavior

The section that used to be split across “Wizard behavior” now also carries the shape workbench toggle:

Setting	Default	Description
Live mapping workbench	Off (beta)	Replaces the Step 2 column table with the live workbench: a source rail, shape cards, a per-level matrix, and a live vault preview. Off keeps the classic column-mapping table.
Confirm before creating files	On	Show a confirmation step before any notes are written
Show progress notices	On	Pop a notice while parsing and generating
Show column statistics	On	Show unique value counts and detected types in the wizard
Show sample values	On	Show a few real cell values alongside each column
Sample values shown	3	How many sample values to show per column (1–10)

Suggestions

Saved-config matching — unchanged in behavior from earlier releases, renamed from “Config matching”:

Setting	Default	Description
Suggest a saved config	On	When a new file looks like one you’ve imported before, offer the matching config
Match confidence	50	How closely a file must match a saved config before it’s suggested (0–100)
Detect data patterns	On	Look at value shapes, like control identifiers, for smarter matching
Offer to save a config	On	After a successful import, ask whether to save the mapping for next time

Drafts

New in the 2026-05-15 draft-sessions work, still current:

Setting	Default	Description
Auto-save import drafts	On	Save wizard progress every few seconds so you can close the modal and resume later
Draft expiry	30 days	Drafts older than this many days are removed when the wizard opens. 0 keeps them forever.
Maximum drafts	20	When there are more drafts than this, the oldest are removed. 0 for no limit.

Live preview: a path chip showing where drafts are stored in the vault.

Advanced

Collapsed by default — rarely-touched knobs:

Setting	Default	Description
Stack file confirmation threshold	1000	A framework stack import asks for confirmation when its planned new notes and folders plus possible refresh rewrites exceed this number. Set to 0 to always confirm
Streaming threshold	5 MB	Files larger than this many megabytes are parsed with the streaming reader
Preview row limit	100	How many rows the wizard preview loads. Lower is faster on large files.
Fast query index	On	Keeps a background Tier 2 sqlite-wasm sidecar index so large vaults query quickly. Deletable — it rebuilds itself from your notes. A second line reports where the index lives: Search index: stored on this device, or in memory, rebuilt each time Obsidian starts when on-device storage is unavailable (since 2026-10-03; source: src/tier2/sidecar.ts searchIndexStatusLine).
Query index file	.crosswalker.sqlite	Where the background index is stored, relative to the vault root. Autocompletes against your vault’s folders.

Live preview: a path chip showing the resolved index file location.

Removed: custom transforms

Earlier releases documented “Custom transforms” and “Custom transforms path” settings here. Both were vestigial — never wired to the wizard or generation engine — and were removed from CrosswalkerSettings on 2026-07-11 along with the unused recipeSchemaStyle knob. The transform system remains a roadmapped v0.2 feature; when it ships, it will get its own settings section.

Diagnostics

Renamed from “Debug”; now a full logging console, not just an on/off switch:

Setting	Default	Description
Write a debug log	Off	Record structured events to a log note in your vault root (crosswalker-debug.log). Helpful when reporting an issue.
Verbose logging	Off	Also record trace-level events. Adds a lot of volume — leave off unless chasing a specific issue.

Live preview: a path chip showing the log note’s location.

Log categories (collapsed, all on by default — every category is recorded unless you opt one out):

Category	Covers
wizard	Import wizard state transitions
csv-parser	CSV and TSV parsing
generation	Note generation pipeline
sssom-import	Mapping file import
tier2	Fast query index lifecycle and queries
config	Saved config save, load, and match
view	Query view rendering
drafts	Wizard draft save, resume, and expiry
lifecycle	Plugin load and unload

Log actions: Open, Export to clipboard, and Clear buttons — mirrored in the command palette.

Saved configurations

Setting	Description
Your saved configs	Count of saved configurations, with buttons to open the config browser or import a config from a JSON file

Full management (search, select, delete, export) lives in the config browser modal, opened from here or the launchpad.

Related

• Import wizard — where Import behavior settings take effect
• Shape workbench synthesis — the design decision behind the Live mapping workbench toggle
• Config system — saved-config matching and the config browser
• Tier 2 sidecar milestone — what the Fast query index setting controls
• Managed / user_preserve — the frontmatter-ownership split that Naming and Cell values settings feed into
• UI-parity audit — the “every setting gets a preview” principle in the wider UI-first mandate