Renamed this thread for clarity.
If there is an
index.mdfile in a folder, treat it as a folder note. If not, treat it as a regular OS folder.
If a folder note feature was implemented, this would be the way to do it- with the slight elaboration that it is a regular OS folder regardless of whether a ‘folder note’ is present (pretty sure this is what you meant by ‘treat as if’.) And a folder note is just a note as well.
It is less about creating a new type of ‘folder note’ object, and more about a simple rule to showindex.md if present, when you click on a folder. It could be index.md, a note with the same name as the folder, or some other user-selectable setting (for exampleClaude.md for those who have integrated Obsidian with Claude Code). I think this keeps the implementation pretty surface level but still effective.
Anything beyond that is probably better left to a plugin. Marionette may seem like the spoil sport here, but the argument against implementing a deep folder note system is valid.
That being said, adding additional features to such a system (auto-creating a file tree in a folder note if present) doesn’t change the fundamental folder/MD file system. But it does seem like feature creep.