Yes, it relies on a Markdown note file for each row and the “columns” are YAML frontmatter and cached metadata for each file.

I am with you on this, I wish Obsidian would optionally allow you to use YAML or some other structured data directly in the fenced code block or base file.

I really, really want something that kind of takes an Obsidian-like approach to local databases, sort of like Excel/Airtable but with flat, human-editable text files that live on your filesystem with a schema driven property editor. It’s kind of a bummer that this gets so tantalizingly close but doesn’t take it to the logical conclusion. I hope they do it eventually or make it possible with plugins.

I guess there is a convergence of ideas going on here because I've actually been tinkering on something like this, a Notion-database-like that just uses flat CSV files (and internally reads it into an in-memory SQLite for filtering, grouping and displaying) then schema files for interpreting the data and displaying it nicely.

Here's a little demo of what I've got working: https://youtu.be/LCR9pAc_xn0.

It's currently still very rough and I'm just using it myself but hoping to open source it at some point.

Yes exactly. In fact, I'd prefer it by built more like mermaid as a _markdown_ JavaScript plugin thing that supports different data formats (not just YAML frontmatter - bare CSV for example) and have it available outside Obsidian (the github .md renderer, VS Code Markdown Preview, etc).