Dendrite supports two kinds of links:

  1. Internal links between notes in your vault, using the [[my-note-about-pasta]] syntax.
  2. External links to URLs, using standard markdown [text](url) syntax.

Internal links can also carry display text using the pipe separator: [[my-note-about-pasta|Pasta Notes]]. In this form, the part before the pipe is the target slug and the part after is what the client may choose to render.

Note: Handling of links is up to the client application. In dendrite.nvim, external links are rendered as clickable links that open in the default web browser and internal links are opened in a new buffer.

A backlink is the inverse of a link: if note A links to note B, then B has a backlink from A. Dendrite tracks backlinks automatically. Every link you write produces a backlink in the other direction without you having to declare it.

This is useful for answering questions like “what notes reference this idea?” Backlinks are exposed through the daemon protocol; how a client surfaces them is up to the client.

During indexing (triggered by note/save or a vault rebuild), the daemon scans the note body for all [[slug]] and [[slug|display]] patterns. For each match it records the target slug, the raw link text, and the line and column position. These records power both the goto and backlink features.

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