description: A recipient is an identity you address with @name — collected in the Mention Inbox and queryable as @name relations. tags: glossary maturity/experimental references:

  • plugs/index/relation.ts
  • plugs/index/indexer.ts
  • plugs/editor/navigate.ts
  • libraries/Library/Std/Editor/Mention Inbox.md

A recipient is an Identity you address. When mentioned with @name, it is indexed to be queried, and clicking it in the editor will open the "Mentions Inbox". -- @zef

See At-Mention for the @name syntax, and Identity for where names come from (accounts, identity.define, or simply being mentioned).

The Mention Inbox

The Mention Inbox is a view listing open @mentions, grouped by page. It opens in the right sidebar by default, and its dock menu can move it to the left sidebar, bottom panel, or a modal. Open it with Navigate: Mentions, or by clicking any mention.

The recipients attribute

Every mention also sets a recipients attribute onto the object that hosts it, holding the @name identifier of each name mentioned.

  • a mention inside a task or list item stamps that task or item;
  • a mention in a plain paragraph or header stamps the page object instead.

Pages can also declare recipients declaratively in frontmatter — useful when a whole page is “for” someone without inline mentions:

---
recipients: ["petesmith", "sales"]
---

Like tags, the value can also be written as a plain string, cut on whitespace:

---
recipients: petesmith sales
---

Addressing vs. crediting

A mention only ever means one thing: this is for you. Marking text as written by someone instead uses a slightly different syntax, see Authorship.

Querying mentions

At-mentions are indexed like any other relation, with kind == "at-mention". to is always the @name identifier (toTag == "identity") and alias holds the name as typed. Build your own view over them with SLIQ, for example @pete.smith:

${query[ from index.relations "at-mention" where _.to == "@pete.smith" select { page = _.page, snippet = _.snippet } ](< from index.relations "at-mention" where _.to == "@pete.smith" select { page = _.page, snippet = _.snippet }

)}

Frontmatter declarations are relations too, with kind == "recipients".