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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsUse Trilium Notes as a small, searchable knowledge base rather than a pile of disconnected pages: build a shallow top-level tree, give recurring questions a restrained set of labels, connect related notes with relations, and use templates for entries you create repeatedly. Trilium notes can contain their own content and child notes, so you do not need a separate folder-note type.
This guide gives you a starter homelab structure, a metadata scheme, reusable service and host templates, practical search queries, and a backup routine. Trilium’s interface labels can change between releases, so confirm exact control names in the current Trilium Notes User Guide.
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Start with a small tree that mirrors how you operate the lab
Trilium’s nested note tree is the foundation of a homelab wiki. A note can hold its own documentation and also have child notes. That means a parent can be both a useful overview and a container for deeper material; you do not have to create an empty folder note before adding children.
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Begin with only the branches you can explain to another person. A practical starter taxonomy is an editorial recommendation, not an official Trilium standard:
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| Top-level note | What belongs there | Typical child notes |
|---|---|---|
| Homelab | Scope, hardware inventory summary, conventions, and a short map of the environment | Overview, change log, contacts or access notes |
| Services | Applications that people use or that provide a function to the lab | Media server, DNS, monitoring, reverse proxy, authentication |
| Hosts | Physical machines, virtual machines, containers, and other compute nodes | Hypervisor host, NAS, Linux VM, Kubernetes node |
| Network | Topology, addressing, VLANs, firewall policies, and switch or router notes | Core switch, guest VLAN, VPN, DNS layout |
| Storage | Disks, pools, shares, datasets, and capacity or retention information | Backup target, media share, snapshot policy |
| Runbooks | Procedures you follow during maintenance or an incident | Restore a service, replace a disk, rotate a certificate |
Keep the first level stable. Put an overview in each major branch so a reader can understand its purpose without opening every descendant. If a service is simple, one note can contain its description, configuration pointers, and recovery steps. Add child notes when the material has a different audience or lifecycle, such as a separate deployment procedure, a troubleshooting record, or a configuration history.
Choose a child note when a topic has its own lifecycle
Create a child note when you expect to search for or update that topic independently. For example, a service note can remain the canonical description while children hold “Deployment,” “Operations,” and “Incident history.” A host note might have children for “Hardware,” “Operating system,” and “Maintenance.” Avoid splitting every paragraph into a note; excessive depth makes browsing slower and gives you more places to keep consistent.
Use names that people will actually search
Put the distinctive name first, followed by a clarifier where needed: Proxmox cluster, DNS service, Storage NAS, or Guest VLAN. Use one naming style for hosts and services. If a service has several instances, include the instance or environment in the title rather than relying on a label alone. A predictable title improves full-text search and makes the tree scannable.
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Labels are searchable metadata. Relations connect one note to another. Attributes can be inherited by descendants, which is useful for a property shared by an entire branch but misleading when descendants differ. Treat metadata as an index for questions you ask repeatedly, not as a tag on every sentence.
Adopt a small, explicit label vocabulary
Start with labels such as #service, #host, #status, and #environment. Add a label only when it lets you retrieve a meaningful set of notes or combine with another condition. For example, #service can distinguish an application note from a machine note, while #environment can separate production, staging, and lab entries.
| Label | Use it for | Example value or convention |
|---|---|---|
#service |
Notes describing an application or network service | Use on the service’s canonical note |
#host |
Physical, virtual, or container host records | Use on machine inventory notes |
#status |
Lifecycle state that you filter regularly | active, planned, or retired |
#environment |
Context that changes operating expectations | production, staging, or lab |
Decide whether a label describes the note itself or a value stored in an attribute, and keep that decision consistent. A status condition such as #status = 'active' is useful when status is represented as an attribute value. A simple type label such as #service is useful for broad filtering.
Use inheritance only for genuinely shared properties
Inherited attributes can save time when every descendant in a branch has the same property. A branch for a particular environment might inherit its environment attribute. Do not inherit a value merely because it is convenient at creation time: a child that belongs to another environment or has a different owner will then appear to have incorrect metadata. When a search result looks wrong, inspect inherited attributes on the parent before adding more labels.
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- This USB drive provides plug and play simplicity with the included 18 inch USB 3.0 cable
- The available storage capacity may vary.
Link relationships instead of duplicating descriptions
A relation points from one note to another. Use it when a reader should move directly between a service and its host, storage location, network dependency, or runbook. Keep the service note as the place for service-specific facts and the host note as the place for machine facts. The relation provides the connection without copying the same paragraph into multiple locations.
Standardize recurring entries with templates
Trilium templates can initialize note content and attributes and can duplicate a child-note structure. That makes them suitable for service, host, and runbook records that otherwise drift into different formats. The fields below are suggested documentation content, not built-in Trilium fields.
Service template
Create a service template with a short purpose section and prompts for the operational facts you will need during maintenance:
- Purpose and owner
- Hostname, virtual machine, or container that runs it
- Ports and entry points
- Dependencies such as DNS, storage, databases, or identity services
- Data location and retention expectations
- Backup method and the last known verification
- Update notes, including notable version or configuration changes
- Recovery steps and links to related runbooks
A useful child-note layout is Deployment, Operations, Troubleshooting, and Change history. The template can create those children automatically, so every new service starts with the same navigation.
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A host template should prompt for hardware or virtual resources, operating system, address, storage, maintenance notes, and the services hosted there. Add a child for maintenance history if the machine is frequently changed. Link the host to each service note instead of listing a second, potentially stale service inventory in the host body.
Runbook template
For a procedure, start with the trigger and expected outcome, then list prerequisites, ordered steps, verification, and rollback or recovery. Keep commands in code blocks and state where a step applies. A runbook that says only “restore the database” is not a procedure; it should identify the data source, destination, checks, and the condition that confirms success.
Build and apply a template
- Create a note that contains the headings, attributes, and child-note arrangement you want to reuse.
- Use Trilium’s current template controls to mark or save that note as a template. The exact label is release-sensitive, so check the current Templates section of the User Guide.
- When creating a new service or host, apply the template before entering instance-specific details. This initializes the structure and any attributes defined by the template.
- Review inherited attributes after applying it. Remove or override any value that is not true for the new note.
- Update the template when your operational minimum changes, but do not rewrite old notes automatically without checking their historical accuracy.
Search from broad terms to precise filters
Trilium search covers note titles, note content, and attributes. Start with a term a person is likely to remember, then narrow the result set with labels, attribute conditions, or the search scope controls. Search syntax and control names are release-sensitive; verify them against the current guide if a query behaves differently in your installation.
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Useful search examples
| Query or control | What it does | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
proxmox |
Finds full-text matches in searchable note material | Start here when you remember a product, host, or service name |
proxmox #service |
Combines a full-text term with a label filter | Find service notes that mention the term |
#status = 'active' |
Filters on an attribute condition | List notes whose status attribute is active |
| Ancestor control plus a depth value | Restricts full search to a chosen subtree and optionally limits descendant depth | Search only under Services or only its immediate children |
The combined query form follows the documented pattern tolkien #book; proxmox #service adapts it to a homelab. If a label query returns nothing, check spelling, whether the label is attached to the note you expect, and whether the attribute is inherited from another ancestor.
Scope searches to the branch where the answer should live
Use the Ancestor control when a broad term produces noise from old incidents, archived hosts, and unrelated notes. Selecting Services as the ancestor keeps the result set focused on service documentation. A depth limit is useful when you want only canonical entries and not every procedure beneath them. For a network change, scope to Network; for a machine inventory question, scope to Hosts.
Save searches that represent operational questions
Save a search when you will repeat it during maintenance. Good candidates include active services, planned work, notes under a particular environment, and runbooks containing a specific dependency. Give the saved search a question-shaped name, such as Active services or Runbooks for storage, so another administrator understands its purpose without inspecting the query.
Use a search sequence during an incident
- Search the distinctive service or hostname without filters.
- Scope the results to the relevant top-level branch if unrelated notes dominate.
- Add a type label such as
#serviceor#host. - Open the canonical note and follow its relations to the host, storage, network, and recovery runbook.
- Search for the failure term inside the scoped branch to find troubleshooting or change-history children.
Keep documentation useful after the initial setup
Separate canonical facts from event history
Keep stable facts—purpose, dependencies, addresses, ports, and data location—in the service or host note. Put dated changes and incidents in child notes. This prevents a current overview from becoming an undifferentiated diary while preserving the detail needed to understand why a setting changed.
Record relationships at the point of change
When you deploy a service to a different host or move its data, update the canonical note and its relations during the same maintenance window. A stale relation is worse than no relation because it creates a confident path to the wrong dependency.
Review labels as a vocabulary, not a collection
Periodically look for near-duplicates such as different spellings or singular and plural forms. Merge them deliberately and update templates so new notes use the preferred form. Do not add a new label to solve a one-time retrieval problem; a distinctive title, a relation, or a scoped full-text search may be enough.
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The data-directory guide identifies the directory that contains the data needed for a backup. Preserve that directory using a separate destination, such as another computer, cloud storage, or an external USB drive. A separate drive is an optional physical destination inferred from the recommendation to keep another copy; Trilium does not require a particular brand, capacity, or device.
- Find the data directory identified by the current Trilium documentation for your installation.
- Copy the directory to a separate storage location on a schedule that matches how often your notes change.
- Keep the copy separate from the machine running Trilium so a host failure does not remove both copies.
- Periodically perform a restore test using the official restore workflow, ideally in a disposable or separate environment.
- Record the date and result of the test in a maintenance note so you know which backup was actually recoverable.
Do not assume that seeing an automatic backup file proves that a complete restore will succeed. A restore check is the step that turns a copied directory into a known recovery option.
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Common failure modes and fixes
The tree is too deep to browse
Move stable categories up a level and keep procedures as children of the service or host they support. Use search and relations for cross-cutting navigation instead of creating another branch for every concept.
Every note has several nearly identical labels
Remove labels that do not answer a recurring question. Keep a short vocabulary and make templates apply only the labels that are true for every note created from them.
Inherited metadata produces misleading results
Inspect the parent notes for inherited attributes. Stop inheriting a property when descendants can legitimately differ, then set the value explicitly on notes that need it.
A query misses a note you can see in the tree
Check whether the term appears in the title, content, or attribute value you are searching for. Confirm the note is inside the selected ancestor and depth scope, and verify the exact label spelling. Remove filters one at a time to identify which condition excludes the note.
A template creates the wrong child structure
Edit the template rather than manually correcting every new note. For existing notes, preserve historical content and add only the missing child where it improves navigation; do not blindly overwrite notes that have already diverged for a reason.
The only backup is on the same host
Copy the data directory to a different computer, cloud destination, or other separate storage location, then test a restore. The built-in backup alone is not the additional copy the official guide encourages.
A practical first-session checklist
- Create
HomelabwithServices,Hosts,Network,Storage, andRunbooksbeneath it. - Write one overview note for the lab and one canonical note for your most important service.
- Define a short label vocabulary, beginning with
#service,#host,#status, and#environmentonly where they support real searches. - Add relations between that service, its host, its storage or network dependencies, and its recovery runbook.
- Create service and host templates with the fields your maintenance work actually needs.
- Test
proxmox,proxmox #service, and#status = 'active'with your own names and attributes. - Run one search scoped to an ancestor and depth so you know how to narrow noisy results.
- Save at least one recurring operational search.
- Locate the Trilium data directory, make a separate copy, and schedule a restore check.
With this arrangement, the tree handles browsing, labels and attributes handle predictable filtering, relations handle dependencies, templates handle consistency, and saved searches handle repeated operational questions. Keep each mechanism limited to the job it performs, and the documentation remains navigable as the homelab grows.
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