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Obsidian Canvas arrows (edges) carry semantic meaning — they show how ideas relate, how tasks depend on one another, or how a concept flows into another. When those cards are materialized into standalone Markdown files, simply creating the files would silently discard all of that relational structure. Canvas Card-Materializer preserves it by appending a Connected Nodes: section to each materialized file, translating visual arrows into Obsidian wikilinks that remain navigable long after you close the canvas.

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The Connection Algorithm

Connection processing happens across Passes 2 and 3 of the materialization workflow. Pass 2 — Edge traversal: After all files are created and recorded in exportMap, the plugin iterates over canvas.edges — a Set<CanvasEdge> exposed by Obsidian’s internal Canvas API. Each CanvasEdge has the shape: 
interface CanvasEdge {
    id: string;
    from: { node: CanvasNode };
    to: { node: CanvasNode };
}
For each edge, the plugin checks whether both edge.from.node.id and edge.to.node.id are present in exportMap. If both endpoints were materialized in the current operation, it resolves the link text using Obsidian’s metadata cache: 
const linkPath = app.metadataCache.fileToLinktext(
    targetData.fileObj,       // the destination TFile
    sourceData.fileObj.path   // the path of the source file
);
fileToLinktext() produces the shortest unambiguous wikilink string for the destination file as seen from the source file — so [[Sprint Goals]] rather than a full vault-relative path, unless disambiguation is required. The result is wrapped in [[...]] and queued under the source node’s ID in a linkUpdates map. Pass 3 — Writing the section: For each node that has at least one outgoing edge to another materialized node, the plugin reads the file content and appends the Connected Nodes: block: 
const linkSection = `\n\n---\n**Connected Nodes:**\n${links.map(l => `- ${l}`).join('\n')}`;
await app.vault.modify(file, content + linkSection);

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Directionality

Connections are directional. An arrow drawn from Node A to Node B produces a Connected Nodes: entry in Node A’s file only. Node B’s file does not automatically receive a reverse link. This mirrors the directionality of the original canvas arrow and gives you intentional, one-way references rather than automatic mutual backlinks. If you want bidirectional connections, draw arrows in both directions on the canvas before materializing.

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What the Generated Section Looks Like

A materialized note with outgoing connections will have a section appended at the end of its content that looks like this: 
---
**Connected Nodes:**
- [[Related-Note]]
- [[Another-Note]]
The horizontal rule (---) visually separates the node’s original content from the connection list. Each bullet is a standard Obsidian wikilink, meaning it appears in graph view, the backlinks panel of the target note, and is navigable with a click.
Connections are only preserved between nodes that were both selected and materialized in the same operation. If Node A points to Node B but Node B was not part of the selection, the edge is silently ignored — no partial or broken link is written to Node A’s file. To capture a connection, ensure both endpoints are selected before triggering “Materialize cards to files.”
Re-materializing a card that already has a Connected Nodes: section will not duplicate it. Before appending, the plugin checks whether the string **Connected Nodes:** already exists in the file content:
if (!content.includes("**Connected Nodes:**")) {
    await app.vault.modify(file, content + linkSection);
}
However, if the set of connections has changed since the first materialization (e.g., you added new arrows on the canvas), the existing section is not updated — it is simply left intact. To refresh connections, manually remove the old Connected Nodes: section before re-materializing.

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