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Categories Enabled But No Item Has Any

listing
A listing configures categories: but no resolved item has any categories defined; the sidebar is suppressed.

Q-12-12 — Categories Enabled But No Item Has Any

A listing configures categories: but no resolved item has any categories defined; the sidebar is suppressed.

What this means

A listing’s categories: key asks Quarto to render a sidebar that groups items by their categories front-matter field. If the listing is configured for that sidebar but every resolved item is missing categories:, there is nothing to group on, and the sidebar would render empty. Quarto suppresses it instead and emits this warning.

Why this happens

Two common causes:

  • The category fields exist on the items but under a different key. Quarto reads categories: (plural); a single category: does not contribute.
  • The listing is freshly authored and none of its items carry categories yet.

How to fix

Add categories: to the front matter of the items that should appear in each group:

---
title: "My post"
categories: [news, weekly]
---

If you do not want a categories sidebar at all, set categories: false on the listing to silence this warning.