Backlinks
The Backlinks panel shows every note in your workspace that links to a given page. It is one of the most powerful navigation tools in AS Notes — use it to understand how ideas connect across your knowledge base.
Opening the Panel
- Press
Ctrl+Alt+B(Cmd+Alt+B on macOS) to open backlinks for the currently active file. - Right-click any wikilink in the editor and choose View Backlinks to see backlinks for that specific page — useful for checking forward references (links to pages that don't exist yet).
The panel opens beside your active editor.
What You See
Each backlink is displayed as a chain — the full outline context from the root of the page down to the link. A standalone mention (not nested inside another wikilink) is a chain of length one.
For example, if Project.md contains:
- [[Tasks]]
- [[NGINX]]
…then the backlink chain for NGINX from Project.md would be:
Project → Tasks → NGINX
Each link in the chain is individually clickable and shows its line number (e.g. [L12]). Below each chain, the surrounding line text is shown with the wikilink highlighted — giving you immediate context without having to open the file.
View Modes
Toggle the view mode using the button in the panel header:
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Flat by page (default) | All backlink instances listed alphabetically by source page name. Journal files sort chronologically. |
| Grouped by chain | Backlinks grouped by their chain pattern, with collapsible headers. Good for exploring concept-based relationships. |
The default mode is configured via as-notes.backlinkGroupByChain in Settings.
Context Verbosity
A second toggle controls how much line text is shown:
- Compact (default) — single-line, truncated
- Wrapped — full text visible
The default is configured via as-notes.backlinkWrapContext.
Alias-Aware
If a page has aliases (see Wikilinks), the backlinks panel includes links that target any of the page's aliases, not just direct filename references.
Forward References
The panel works even for pages that don't exist yet. If you have written [[Future Topic]] somewhere and then right-click that link and choose View Backlinks, you will see all the places it is referenced — even before Future Topic.md has been created.
Live Sync
The panel updates automatically when you:
- Switch to a different file
- Save a file
- The index is updated (file changes, background scan)
Backlink Counts in Hover Tooltips
When you hover over any wikilink in the editor, the tooltip shows the number of backlinks for that page. This gives you a quick sense of how central an idea is without opening the panel.