fix: write through the open editor so captures land in it before the run ends

[chhoumann]

A Capture with {{CURSOR}} into the active note silently left the cursor where it was once the note grew past ~64 KB. This PR fixes that and the rest of the bug class behind it. When QuickAdd writes a note that is open in an editor, it now writes through that editor, so the editor already holds the result when the run ends.

Root cause

I checked this against Obsidian 1.13.7's app.js.

• vault.modify keeps the new content in memory only when it is at most vault.cacheLimit = 65,536 characters.
• An open MarkdownView reloads on the modify event through loadFileInternal, which uses cachedRead for cached files and a real async disk read otherwise.
• For small notes the editor catches up before vault.modify resolves. Past 64K characters it catches up 10-30 ms after it resolves. setMarkdownCursorsAtOffsets then compares stale editor text to what QuickAdd wrote and gives up without a word.

The same mismatch has a second trigger that doesn't depend on size, which I reproduced on a 2 KB note: capturing within Obsidian's ~2 s autosave window after typing. QuickAdd read stale disk content, and vault.modify made Obsidian 3-way-merge behind a "has been modified externally, merging changes automatically" notice. The editor text no longer matched, so the cursor was dropped again.

The fix

src/utils/noteContent.ts adds small helpers that follow Obsidian's plugin guideline to prefer the Editor API over Vault.modify for an open note:

• processNote: a drop-in twin of vault.process. When the note is open in a source or live-preview editor, it applies the change as one minimal edit in a single CodeMirror transaction, then saves. Cursor, folds, scroll and undo survive, and the editor holds the result the moment this resolves. It falls back to vault.process when there is no such editor.
• writeNote(base, next): processNote plus the 3-way merge guard that used to be inlined in CaptureChoiceEngine.onFileExists. Edits made while the capture was being formatted get merged in; conflicting edits are refused with no write.
• readNote / flushNote: save the open editor first, so reads include unsaved typing.
• processNoteFrontMatter: flush, then processFrontMatter, so front matter writes don't trigger the merge notice.

Safety rule: the editor path is used only when, right after flushing, the editor text equals the disk text, and the view is still the same, still on this note and still in an editing mode. If the editor is behind disk (Obsidian hasn't loaded an earlier write from Templater, processFrontMatter or another plugin yet), the helpers fall back to the vault path Obsidian reconciles itself. That means stale editor text is never saved over newer disk content. save() returns early when an autosave is still writing, so the helpers wait for that save to land before trusting the disk.

Adopted at the call sites in this class, found by an audit of every vault write to a note that may be open:

Where	Symptom on master
Capture top/bottom/insert after/before (onFileExists, commitCapture)	{{CURSOR}} ignored past 64K; merge notice and lost cursor after recent typing
Apply template top/bottom (TemplateInsertEngine)	Cursor lost on large or recently typed notes
Template overwrite + finishTemplateContent	A template past 64K overwriting the open note left a literal {{CURSOR}} in the file
Apply template, empty-note fast path (applyTemplateToActiveNote)	Type into a new note, apply within ~2 s: the note looked empty on disk, so "replace" wiped the typing
Apply template at cursor with front matter, plus other front matter writers	Merge notice on every run
Append link to a specified file (fileLinks)	Merge notice when that note is open with unsaved typing

The issue's "Related" note is also handled: with Run Templater on entire destination file on, the {{CURSOR}} position was discarded even when Templater changed nothing. It is now discarded only when that pass (or property post-processing) actually rewrote the note. The docs say so.

Proof it works

tests/e2e/open-note-writes.test.ts runs in real Obsidian 1.13.7. Every assertion runs in the same tick the run resolves, with no polling, so an editor that catches up late fails the test.

E2E case (real Obsidian)	master	this PR
Capture cursor, active note 2 / 60 KB	pass	pass
Capture cursor, active note 70 / 132 / 250 / 1024 KB	fail (cursor stays at {line: 5, ch: 3})	pass
Typing not yet autosaved, 2 KB and 250 KB	fail (cursor lost; at 250 KB the editor doesn't show the capture yet)	pass, typing kept, no notice
Apply template at cursor with front matter + unsaved typing	fail ("modified externally, merging changes automatically.")	pass
Large template overwriting the open note	fail (literal {{CURSOR}} left in the note)	pass
Apply template to a new note with unsaved typing	not in the first A/B run	pass, typing kept
Whole-file Templater pass that changes nothing keeps the cursor	not in the first A/B run	pass
Undo in one step; background pane with unsaved typing; reading view; Apply top/bottom on a 250 KB note	pass	pass

The whole E2E suite passes: 23 files, 212 tests. That run had real Templater 2.25.1 installed with auto jump to cursor on, which is the reporter's setup, and includes the Templater-gated suite that is normally skipped. Unit tests: 5,785 pass. New noteContent.test.ts cases use a fake editor that really applies transactions. The two race guards (view switched mid-write, autosave in flight) each have a test that fails when that guard is removed.

Performance

Reporter's scenario (insert after # Encounters, - captured {{CURSOR}}), 20 runs per size, same machine, measured in-app:

Note	Cursor placed: master	Cursor placed: this PR	Capture visible in editor, median: master	This PR
2 KB	20/20	20/20	7.0 ms	7.8 ms
40 KB	20/20	20/20	21.7 ms	23.3 ms
70 KB	0/20	20/20	27.9 ms	34.3 ms
250 KB	0/20	20/20	29.2 ms	54.0 ms
1 MB	0/20	20/20	39.1 ms	65.8 ms
5 MB	0/20	20/20	132.3 ms	130.0 ms

Where the time goes at 132 KB, instrumented in-app:

• QuickAdd's own work (save, read, write) is ~6 ms.
• The CodeMirror change is ~22 ms. Any change to a doc that size costs that, including the "set" reload master's vault.modify triggers; master just pays it after the run resolves.
• Moving the caret and scrolling to it costs ~23 ms. Master skips this step because it fails, and that step accounts for the 70 KB to 1 MB delta.
• No run produced a merge notice.

Designs considered

I had two independent designs and an audit done in parallel, then an adversarial review of the result.

• Retry/wait until the editor matches (the reporter's local patch, or an editor-change wait). Rejected: it relies on Obsidian's reload timing and needs an arbitrary timeout. It also never succeeds once the user types, or once Obsidian's merge makes the text differ, so the dirty-editor trigger stays broken.
• Pushing content through Obsidian internals (quick-preview, setViewData). Rejected: private and fragile.
• Editor-first writes (chosen): deterministic, only public API (plus one guarded read of view.saving), and it removes the dirty-editor trigger as well. Two designs and the review all landed here independently.

Behavior changes and review focus

• The concurrent-edit merge guard moved from onFileExists, where it compared two reads, into writeNote, where it runs at commit time. That's slightly stronger: nothing sits between the check and the write. It also covers new-file captures, where master blindly overwrote a late Templater trigger-on-create write.
• A note written through the editor is saved with LF line endings. Obsidian already does this on any user edit.
• noteContent.ts is the piece to review closely, especially the interleavings in processNote.

Found along the way, not changed here

• Obsidian bug: a reading view of a large note (250 KB in my tests) doesn't re-render after any vault.modify/vault.process, even though the view's data updates. A 2 KB note re-renders fine. It's independent of QuickAdd and reproduces with a bare vault.modify; the reading-view E2E asserts the view's data instead.
• Same class, lower traffic: the AI tools' append_to_note / insert_under_heading (src/ai/tools/builtins/vaultTools.ts) and the Templater error rollback in templaterIntegration.ts still use read + modify.

Fixes #1798

Note

Write captures through the open editor via new noteContent helpers

• Adds a noteContent module with shared note helpers: readNote saves an eligible open editor before reading, processNote applies writes as a single minimal editor transaction on a synchronized source-mode view (falling back to vault.process), and writeNote three-way merges non-conflicting intervening edits and rejects conflicts
• Rewires CaptureChoiceEngine, template engines, frontmatter writers, and link appenders to use these helpers instead of direct vault reads/writes and fileManager.processFrontMatter
• Fixes cursor handling: cursor placement is skipped after a merged write or when a whole-file Templater pass rewrites the note, and rebaseTemplateCursor now maps offsets across CRLF-to-LF normalization
• Adds unit tests for the new helpers and a large E2E suite covering writes to open, unsaved, background, reading-view, and CRLF notes up to 1MB
• Risk: CaptureWriteResult loses its cursorPlacementSafe field, and content is now LF-normalized on synchronized-editor writes — check CaptureChoiceEngine.ts and noteContent.ts for consumers of the old shape; saves that stay in flight past 10 seconds now throw

^{Macroscope summarized c5e0a6b.}

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Bug Fixes
  • Capture and template operations better preserve edits made while a note is open, reducing conflicts between editor content and saved changes.
  • Note and frontmatter updates stay synchronized with open editors, helping prevent stale content and external-modification notices.
  • Cursor placement is skipped when concurrent edits or whole-file Templater changes make its position unreliable. Cursor positions are also handled more consistently when line endings differ.
• Documentation
  • Clarified when Capture skips cursor placement after whole-file Templater processing.

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

QuickAdd now uses shared helpers to read and update note content alongside open editors. Capture, template, and property operations use these helpers. Tests cover concurrent edits, cursor placement, and open-note writes.

Changes

Open-note writes

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Note-content synchronization src/utils/noteContent.ts, src/utils/noteContent.test.ts, src/utils/templateCursorPlacement.ts, src/utils/templateCursorPlacement.test.ts	Adds helpers to locate and save open Markdown editors, process note content and frontmatter, merge concurrent edits, and calculate minimal text edits. Cursor offsets are rebased across CRLF-to-LF changes. Unit tests cover editor, disk, save, merge, and cursor-rebase cases.
Capture writes and cursor placement src/engine/CaptureChoiceEngine.ts, src/engine/CaptureChoiceEngine.*.test.ts, docs/src/content/docs/docs/Choices/CaptureChoice.md	Capture uses shared helpers for note reads and writes. A merge alone no longer produces a changed result. Tests cover concurrent edits, conflicts, and cursor placement when whole-file Templater processing changes or preserves the note. The documentation states that cursor placement is skipped when that processing changes the destination note.
Template and property writes src/engine/TemplateEngine.ts, src/engine/TemplateInsertEngine.ts, src/engine/applyTemplateToActiveNote.ts, src/engine/helpers/frontmatterPostProcessor.ts, src/utils/editorInsertion.ts, src/utils/fileLinks.ts, src/utils/frontmatterPropertyLinks.ts, tests/e2e/open-note-writes.test.ts, tests/helpers/*, src/engine/*test.ts	Template and property operations use shared note-content or frontmatter helpers. Tests cover open-note writes, property handling, cursor placement, and cursor-marker removal.

Priority: ➖ Normal

Estimated code review effort: 4 (Complex) | ~60 minutes

Change: Bug fix · Severity of issue fixed: Medium

Merge Risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to c5e0a

A capture can be reported as complete while its edit has not reached the note on disk. The save-failure contract should be resolved before merging.

Security Architecture Review

Security architecture risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to c5e0a

Writing through an open editor addresses synchronization problems, but a save timeout after the edit can still be treated as success before the note is confirmed on disk. That completion and recovery behavior merits design review. No expanded external access path was identified.

Retained concerns

• Medium · reliability · observed: An editor-first write can be reported as committed after its post-edit save times out, without confirmation that the updated note reached disk. This weakens failure containment and leaves recovery dependent on a later editor save.

Security review details

Security Blast Radius

• inferred — The demonstrated effect is integrity and persistence of a targeted note across capture and template operations, rather than expanded network, credential, or service authority.

Trust Boundaries and Controls

• observed — Editor eligibility and disk equality guard against writing a stale editor over newer disk text; a conflicting three-way merge is refused before the write.

Resilience and Maintainability Implications

• inferred — A success result without confirmed persistence can mislead subsequent note processing about which copy is authoritative. The evidence does not establish a separate attacker-controlled route to cause the timeout.

Hardening Proposals

• proposed — Represent a failed post-edit save as an explicit pending-persistence outcome, with a verified recovery path, rather than silently treating it as a durable success. Preserve idempotency so retrying a capture cannot duplicate an editor-held edit.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 35.14% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 37 functions across 33 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly describes the main change: writing through an open editor so capture operations update the editor before completion.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Issue [#1798] requires reliable {{CURSOR}} placement for large notes open in the active editor. noteContent.ts flushes editor saves and writes synchronized content through one minimal editor trans…
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	The shared note-content helpers, capture and template integration, cursor rebasing, front matter and file-link adoption, documentation, and tests support the synchronization and cursor objectives in […

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It saves the lines before moving on
The cursor finds its place in view
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⚠️ Outside diff range comments (1)

🟠 Major · Do not continue while the editor save is still active. · noteContent.ts:106-112

src/utils/noteContent.ts:106-112
🗄️ Data Integrity & Integration | 🟠 Major | ⚡ Quick win

Do not continue while the editor save is still active.

saveView can return while view.saving remains true. readNote then reads disk, and processNote can fall back to vault.process with stale disk content. The editor comparison does not protect either path. Obsidian does not define serialization for overlapping MarkdownView.save() calls, so a later editor save can overwrite the fallback result.

Suggested fix

 	for (let waited = 0; saving() && waited < 2000; waited += 10) await waitFor(10);
+	if (saving()) throw new Error("Timed out waiting for the editor save to finish");

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In `@src/utils/noteContent.ts` around lines 106 - 112, Update saveView to throw an
error if view.saving is still true after its wait limit, so callers cannot read
stale disk content or continue processing while an editor save remains active.

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Outside diff comments:
In `@src/utils/noteContent.ts`:
- Around line 106-112: Update saveView to throw an error if view.saving is still
true after its wait limit, so callers cannot read stale disk content or continue
processing while an editor save remains active.

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[chhoumann]

@coderabbitai Your outside-diff finding on saveView (don't continue while an editor save is still active) was fixed in 0acd052, the same issue Codex raised. saveView now waits up to 10 s and then throws before anything is read or written. The unit test "writes nothing when an autosave never finishes" covers it.

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@chhoumann Thanks for fixing the saveView issue in 0acd052. The 10-second wait and rejection prevent note processing from continuing while an editor save remains active. The new unit test covers the stuck-autosave case.

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Inline comments:
In `@src/utils/noteContent.ts`:
- Line 72: Update the saveView catch in processNote so a failed or still-pending
save remains observable to callers instead of returning after as though the edit
were persisted; propagate the failure or use a distinct pending-save result that
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