Binding rules

A binding rule decides, per scope of your vault, either who reviews those notes or that the plugin is switched off for them entirely.

Settings → AI Editor → Rules. With no rules at all, every enabled editor reviews every note — which is also what happens to a note no rule matches.

What a rule matches

Match type Value
Folder A folder path, e.g. Blog. / matches the whole vault
Tag A tag without #, e.g. draft
Frontmatter key: value, e.g. type: article — or a bare key as a presence check
OSK note type A note type name, e.g. permanent-notes

What a rule does

  • Assign reviewer — the matched notes are reviewed by one editor, or by one panel (which makes it a full panel run, charter and scorecard included).
  • Disable plugin — a kill switch. No rail, no menu items, no commands, no AI, for any note that matches.

The order of evaluation

  1. A matching kill switch wins from anywhere in the list. Position does not save you from it.
  2. Among the rest, the first match from the top assigns the reviewer. One rule, never a union of several.
  3. A note nothing matches is reviewed by every enabled editor.

Use the arrows on each row to set priority. New rules are appended at the bottom, which is the lowest priority.

Each row shows what it currently resolves to, and says so when a rule does nothing.

Assignments are defaults, not laws

A rule supplies the default participant pool. These override it:

  • an explicit Ask a question;
  • Ask for comments — a margin comment names its own editor;
  • a bound action — you named the verb and it names its own target;
  • --editors on the command line;
  • a daemon refresh of a note that was reviewed before, which reuses that review’s editors.

Because they override the rule, they stay available even when the rule’s own target cannot run: a rule pointing at a disabled editor stops Review, not Ask a question.

A kill switch is different: it refuses everything, including all of the above.

Obsidian Starter Kit note types

The OSK note type match works two ways, and a rule matches either spelling:

  • when the Obsidian Starter Kit plugin is installed, against its own type names (for example Permanent Notes);
  • always, against the type/… tag convention (for example permanent_note).

The Rules tab tells you which of the two is active in your vault, and shows the spelling to use. The Starter Kit is optional and is never required — it is feature-detected, not depended on.

A rule is not a privacy exclusion

They look similar and they are not the same thing:

  Disable plugin rule Privacy exclusion
Effect on the note No plugin surfaces, no AI Never sent to any backend
Effect as linked context None — the note can still be attached to another note’s review Absolute: never attached, never followed
Configured in Rules tab Behavior tab

If the point is that a note’s content must never leave the vault, use a privacy exclusion. Use a kill switch when the plugin is simply noise in that part of the vault.

Examples

  • Never in my journal: Folder = Journal, effect Disable plugin.
  • Blog posts get the full panel: Folder = Blog, effect Assign reviewer, target Pre-publish review (panel).
  • Drafts get one cheap reviewer: Tag = draft, effect Assign reviewer, target Concision Editor. Put it below the blog rule if a draft can also be a blog post and you want the panel to win.
  • Only literature notes get the Fact Checker: Frontmatter = type: literature, effect Assign reviewer, target Fact Checker.

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