# Newbie guide to creating your own slash commands (v2)
**URL:** https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964
**Category:** Guides
**Created:** [March 15, 2026, 4:59am UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964 "2026-03-15T04:59:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mmeany](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/mmeany)
#### Post date: [March 15, 2026, 4:59am UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964/1 "2026-03-15T04:59:58Z")
# Overview
The following guide pertains to SilverBullet v2
I am really new to SilverBullet, been using for a couple of days now, but can see how it is going to impact the way I work.
I followed the [Journal Tutorial](https://silverbullet.md/Guide/Journaling) in the [Manual](https://silverbullet.md/Manual) to get started with journaling. It’s a great starting point. I wanted a little more though, to be able to add a time entry for when I was attending meetings for example.
Then I fell down a rabbit hole and ended up in the land of confusion. I wanted to add two `/` commands:
- `/time` - to insert the current time in 24 hr format
- `/timestamp` - to insert the current date and time
In the end, this is how I achieved this
## Steps
- Create a page somewhere to host new slash commands
- Make the page a `meta` page to hide it from normal page search / listings
- Create the `space-lua` functions to provide required content
- Register slash commands to invoke these functions
Since doing all this and reading more, it may be more appropriate to store the `commands` page in `Library`, I leave that to the reader and also point out that you can always simply rename the page to move it there.
## Step 1 - create the page
Same as always, `CTRL-k`, enter page name and `SHIFT-Enter` to create it - I used `silverbullet/commands` as name of my page.
## Step 2 - make the page a `meta` page
Meta pages are hidden away from normal page search, nothing special, just add a `#meta` tag at the top of the page. Done!
## Step 3 - add the functions
After the `#meta` tag, a `space-lua` block is required. Easiest way to add that is `/space-lua` command.
I did not want to create global functions and it took a couple of experiments to convince myself that `local` functions could still be registered in same `space-lua` block as slash commands. I ended up with the following code block:
```space-lua
local function mvm_get_24h_time()
return os.date("%H:%M")
end
local function mvm_get_timestamp()
return os.date("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M")
end
```
**NOTE:** `mvm` are my initials, when I started I though these were going to be global functions and wanted to avoid conflicts - old habit!
Sure, there are probably a million ways to improve on this code, but it gets the job done!
## Step 4 - register slash commands to invoke these functions
In the same `space-lua` block, after the functions, add the following code to register slash commands `/time` and `/timestamp`:
```space-lua
slashCommand.define {
name = "time",
run = function()
editor.insertAtCursor(mvm_get_24h_time())
end
}
slashCommand.define {
name = "timestamp",
run = function()
editor.insertAtCursor(mvm_get_timestamp())
end
}
```
Job done. Now, in any page, you can hit `/` and follow it with `time` or `timestamp` to get the content inserted into your page.
# Closing thoughts
I searched numerous examples while trying to get the above working and hit a number of brick walls:
## Dark theme
My initial attempt contained bad code, I was trying to register commands using syntax from v1. The entire code block was underlined with a squiggly red line - something is wrong. Hover over that squiggly red line and see something like a tooltip, but it looked empty. Took me ages to realise it was not empty, just that the text was impossible to read - I used the mouse to select the text and suddenly it was readable! Unfortunately, the error message it was showing did not help much, but at least I could read it.
## Don’t trust search or AI
The error I mention above was `unexpected symbol near '"'`, like I said, not very useful. Turned out to be me using copy-n-paste code to register the slash command, but entire code block was underlined.
Lesson learnt - don’t trust search or AI. As Zef points out in his [YouTube tutorial on Space Lua](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkLJ3viVq8I), look at example code in the Library for insights. For this, I looked at [[Library/Std/APIs/Date]] to see how the `/today` slash command was registered.
To go find code examples, use `shift-ctrl-k` to search for `meta` pages and find examples there.
---
### Author:  [@Ajschuit](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/Ajschuit)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2026, 5:55pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964/2 "2026-03-27T17:55:33Z")
> [@mmeany](#):
>
> it was not empty, just that the text was impossible to read
Thanks for the reminder, I kept running into that issue as well, but never did anything about it until now. If you add a space-style block with:
```css
.cm-diagnosticText {
color: #000000;
}
```
Or any other dark color, it will make the text legible again.
---
### Author:  [@schmavery](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/schmavery)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2026, 6:49pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964/3 "2026-04-25T18:49:51Z")
Cool! I added pretty much the exact same slash command. In case you wanted to remove a step (and avoid the naming/local/global question), you can also just add the os.date call inline! But I can definitely see this approach being useful in some cases as well.
```auto
slashCommand.define {
name = "time",
description = "Insert the current time",
run = function()
editor.insertAtCursor(os.date("%I:%M %p"), false, true)
end
}
```
---
### Author:  [@uzer](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/uzer)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 2:39pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964/4 "2026-06-10T14:39:25Z")
Also for anyone else learning `space-lua` - you can connect multiple strings this way:
```space-lua
slashCommand.define {
name = "time",
description = "Insert the current time",
run = function()
editor.insertAtCursor("**" .. os.date("%H:%M:%S").. "**\n", false, true)
end
}
```
it`s called `concatenation`
---
### Author:  [@uzer](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/uzer)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 2:39pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964/5 "2026-06-10T14:39:42Z")
Thank you both a lot 😃 - just a note for anyone having the same issues on the server version of SB: **restart SB**. Had a fun time tracking this down, haha.
---
### Author:  [@naveenroyv](https://community.silverbullet.md/u/naveenroyv)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2026, 10:39pm UTC](https://community.silverbullet.md/t/newbie-guide-to-creating-your-own-slash-commands-v2/3964/6 "2026-07-02T22:39:41Z")
@mmeany thank you for the easy-to-follow explanation.