Tasks

A full personal task manager built into Sidecar for planning work, triaging incoming requests, organizing projects, and maintaining daily agendas across all your repositories.

Overview

While TD is purpose-built as structured memory and verification for AI coding agents, Tasks is built for you. It gives you a complete Getting Things Done (GTD) task tracking system with projects, tags, priorities, due dates, and daily agendas—available as both a dedicated project tab and a global cross-project surface.

┌──────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Tasks                        │ Task Detail                              │
│ [Outline] [Inbox] [Next] ... │                                          │
│                              │ Refactor layout engine fit calculations  │
│ [HIGH PRIORITY]              │ Project: sidecar · P1 · Due: Tomorrow    │
│ • Write documentation site   │                                          │
│ • Fix layout engine bounds   │ Ensure 2x2 grid fits within terminal     │
│                              │ floors and caps.                         │
│ [PROJECT: sidecar]           │                                          │
│ • Add notification center    │ Subtasks (2/3):                          │
│ • Test remote host mutations │ [x] Calculate column widths              │
│                              │ [x] Fit row heights                      │
│ 4 · 2 closed                 │ [ ] Handle resize debounce               │
└──────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key Capabilities

• Unified personal task hub: Organize personal todos, feature backlogs, and multi-project tasks in one place.
• GTD Next-action triage: Press N on any open task to immediately mark it as a next action.
• Multiple focused views: Outline, Inbox, Next, Agenda, and Projects views for every stage of planning.
• Show & hide closed work: Press C to reveal or collapse completed (DONE) and cancelled tasks in place.
• Sub-second synchronization: Subscribes to live event streams so changes made in CLI, TUI, or other tabs appear within a second.
• Timezone-aware delegation: Delegation stamps and handoff timestamps render formatted in your local timezone.
• Convert to agent issues: Seamlessly promote personal tasks to tracked TD agent issues when ready for autonomous coding.

Quick Start

1. Press 0 to open global Tasks, or step through tabs with [ / ] to open the project Tasks tab.
2. Press a to create a new task.
3. Enter a title, project, priority, and optional due date.
4. Use j/k to navigate and N to mark high-priority items as Next actions.
5. Press space or x to mark a task as complete.

Core Views

The Tasks interface includes dedicated tabs for every stage of your workflow:

1. Outline

The hierarchical master view of your tasks, organized by project and parent-child task relationships.

• Press C to toggle the visibility of completed and cancelled tasks. When hidden, section badges show counts such as 4 · 2 closed.
• Reordering tasks with keys anchors directly onto visible siblings, preventing unintended structural rewrites.

2. Inbox

The landing ground for new thoughts, incoming review requests, and untriaged tasks.

• Tasks are grouped under project headings so triage passes stay within a consistent visual theme.
• Triage quickly using keyboard shortcuts to assign projects, set priorities, or promote to Next actions.

3. Next (GTD Next Actions)

Your active execution list. Shows all tasks marked as immediate next actions alongside scheduled items.

• Press N from any list or detail view to mark an open task as a Next action.
• If the Next tab is empty, it clearly displays how many dated items are waiting on the Agenda and how to mark tasks for action.

4. Agenda

A date-oriented view showing tasks scheduled for today, upcoming deadlines, and overdue commitments.

5. Projects

A high-level overview grouping all tasks by their designated project and milestone. Pressing C nests closed tasks cleanly under their respective project hierarchy rather than pruning them.

Keyboard Reference

Navigation & Views

Key	Action
j, k, ↓, ↑	Move through the task list
h, l, ←, →	Switch between tabs (Outline, Inbox, Next, Agenda, Projects)
g / G	Jump to the first / last task
ctrl+d / ctrl+u	Page down / Page up
enter	Open or focus task detail
C	Toggle display of closed/completed tasks
N	Mark selected open task as GTD Next action
/	Filter and search tasks
esc	Clear search filter or close detail view

Task Management

Key	Action
a	Create a new task
e	Edit the selected task
space, x	Toggle task completion (Open ↔ Done)
D	Delete task (with confirmation)
p	Change task priority (P0, P1, P2, P3)
d	Set due date
m	Move task to a different project
t	Add or edit tags

Embedded Tab vs. Standalone Tools

Sidecar includes the Tasks tab embedded directly within the application binary. No external dependencies are required to use the tab in Sidecar.

For CLI and standalone terminal workflows outside Sidecar, the companion tasks tools are available:

• tasks — Fast CLI for querying, creating, and completing tasks from scripts or shell prompts.
• tasks-tui — Fullscreen dedicated terminal user interface.
• tasks-api — Local API service for synchronizing task databases across machines.

Installing Standalone Tools

To install or update the standalone CLI tools:

# macOS / Linux via Homebrew
brew install marcus/tap/tasks

# From source (requires Go 1.21+)
go install github.com/marcus/tasks/cmd/tasks@latest

Inside Sidecar, open Configuration (,) → Panels & Integrations to check installation status or trigger a one-click install.