# Using Foam

Foam is a personal knowledge management system built on [Visual Studio Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/) and [GitHub](https://github.com/). It helps you organize research, create discoverable notes, and publish your knowledge.

> See also [[frequently-asked-questions]].

## Key Features

- **Wikilinks** - Connect thoughts with `[[double bracket]]` syntax
- **Block anchors** - Link or embed specific paragraphs, list items, and headings with `[[note#^id]]`
- **Embeds** - Include content from other notes with `![[note]]` syntax
- **Backlinks** - Automatically discover connections between notes
- **Graph visualization** - See your knowledge network visually
- **Daily notes** - Capture timestamped thoughts
- **Templates** - Standardize note creation
- **Tags** - Organize and filter content

## Why Choose Foam?

- **Free and open source** - No subscriptions or vendor lock-in
- **Own your data** - Notes stored as standard Markdown files
- **VS Code integration** - Leverage powerful editing and extensions
- **Git-based** - Version control and collaboration built-in

Foam is like a bathtub: _What you get out of it depends on what you put into it._

## Getting Started

- [[installation]]
- [[get-started-with-vscode]]
- [[recommended-extensions]]
- [[first-workspace]]
- [[note-taking-in-foam]]
- [[sync-notes]]
- [[keyboard-shortcuts]]

## Features

- [[wikilinks]]
- [[block-anchors]]
- [[embeds]]
- [[foam-queries]]
- [[tags]]
- [[backlinking]]
- [[daily-notes]]
- [[spell-checking]]
- [[graph-view]]
- [[note-properties]]
- [[templates]]
- [[paste-images-from-clipboard]]
- [[custom-markdown-preview-styles]]
- [[link-reference-definitions]]
- [[custom-snippets]]

## Recipes

[[recipes]] is a collection of user-contributed patterns that describe different ways you could utilize Foam or integrate it with other tools.

## Publishing

You can publish your Foam notes for consumption in different formats.
Examples: [[publish-to-github-pages]], [[generate-gatsby-site]], [[publish-to-vercel]]

See [[publishing]] for more details.

## Tools

- [[cli]]
- [[workspace-janitor]]
- [[orphans]]
- [[foam-logging-in-vscode]]