Typed Front Matter

Front matter is YAML metadata at the top of a markdown file, surrounded by triple-dash lines (---). Prezet parses and validates this metadata into strongly typed objects for consistent content management.

Example:

---
title: My Blog Post
date: 2024-05-06
category: Features
excerpt: A short description of the post
image: /prezet/img/example.png
contentType: article
draft: false
author: jane_doe
tags: [markdown, content]
---

#How It's Used

Content Display: Title, excerpt, and metadata are rendered in views
SEO Optimization: Drives meta tags, Open Graph data, and JSON-LD
Content Organization: Category, tags, and draft status enable filtering and organization
Content Type: Determines how content appears in structured data (article, video, category)

#Validation

Prezet validates front matter using the laravel-validated-dto package. You can view the default class here: FrontmatterData.php.

#Default Fields

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
title	string	Yes	-	Document title
excerpt	string	Yes	-	Short description (also accepts description as alias)
date	Carbon	Yes	-	Publication date
category	string	No	null	Content category
image	string	No	null	Path to image
contentType	string	No	article	Content type: article, video, or category
draft	boolean	No	false	Draft status
author	string	No	null	Author identifier
slug	string	No	null	URL-friendly identifier
key	string	No	null	Unique identifier
tags	array	No	[]	Array of tag strings

#Field Mapping

Prezet automatically maps common field name variations:

description → excerpt
content_type → contentType

This allows you to use either naming convention in your front matter.

#Validation Errors

When you run php artisan prezet:index, Prezet validates all markdown files. If validation fails, you'll see clear error messages:

Common validation errors:

Missing required fields (title, excerpt, date)
Invalid data types (string where date expected)
Invalid contentType value (must be article, video, or category)
Malformed YAML syntax

#Customization

Extend or modify the FrontmatterData class to add custom fields. See Customizing Front Matter for details.

#FrontmatterData vs DocumentData

You may notice some properties appear in both FrontmatterData and as top-level properties in DocumentData (like category, draft, slug, and key). This duplication is intentional:

FrontmatterData: preserves your original markdown metadata
DocumentData: elevates certain properties to database columns for efficient querying

This separation provides strong validation while maintaining fast database lookups.