--- layout: step title: Front Matter position: 3 --- Front matter is a snippet of [YAML](http://yaml.org/) placed between two triple-dashed lines at the start of a file. You can use front matter to set variables for the page: ```yaml --- my_number: 5 --- ``` You can call front matter variables in Liquid using the `page` variable. For example, to output the value of the `my_number` variable above: {% raw %} ```liquid {{ page.my_number }} ``` {% endraw %} ## Use front matter Change the `` on your site to use front matter: {% raw %} ```liquid --- title: Home --- <!doctype html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>{{ page.title }}

``` {% endraw %} {: .note .info } You _must_ include front matter on the page for Jekyll to process any Liquid tags on it. To make Jekyll process a page without defining variables in the front matter, use: ```yaml --- --- ``` Next, you'll learn more about layouts and why your pages use more source code than plain HTML.

{{ "Hello World!" | downcase }}