Daily TODO

A standalone Obsidian community plugin for a dedicated daily TODO workflow. Create dated TODO files in their own folder — separate from journal or daily notes — and roll incomplete tasks forward with one click. No Daily Notes or Periodic Notes plugin required.

Features

• Standalone workflow — Does not require the Daily Notes or Periodic Notes plugins.
• One-click creation — Ribbon icon or command palette creates today's TODO file; not a hook on daily note creation.
• Dedicated TODO folder — Dated files like 2025-06-09 TODO.md, stored separately from journal or daily notes.
• TODO-section scoped — Only rolls incomplete items from the # TODO section; stops at ## Notes or other headings.
• Smart nested rollover — Preserves nested content under incomplete tasks; skips completed checkbox subtrees.
• First-run setup — Modal to browse an existing folder or create _TODO with a sample yesterday file for immediate testing.
• Frontmatter metadata — tags, date, type: daily-todo, and rolledOverFrom wikilink to the source note.
• Folder recovery — Re-prompts setup if the configured folder is deleted or moved.
• Automatic source detection — Finds the most recent dated TODO file before today in your configured folder (including subfolders).
• Configurable naming — Set the vault folder, file name suffix, frontmatter tag, and whether to include a # TODO heading.
• Legacy file support — Automatically renames older files that used YYYY-MM-DDtodo.md naming to the current YYYY-MM-DD TODO.md format.

Installation

From Obsidian Community Plugins

1. Open Settings → Community plugins.
2. Turn off Restricted mode if needed.
3. Click Browse, search for Daily TODO, and install.
4. Enable the plugin.

Manual installation

1. Download main.js and manifest.json from the latest GitHub release.
2. Create a folder {vault}/.obsidian/plugins/dailytodo/.
3. Copy main.js and manifest.json into that folder.
4. Reload Obsidian and enable Daily TODO under Settings → Community plugins.

Usage

First run

The first time you use the plugin (or if your configured folder no longer exists), a setup modal appears when you run Create today's TODO:

1. Browse folders — Pick an existing vault folder for daily TODO notes.
2. Create _TODO — Creates a _TODO folder with a sample yesterday note so you can test rollover immediately.

After setup, today's TODO file is created automatically.

Daily workflow

1. Configure the plugin under Settings → Daily TODO settings (optional — first-run setup handles the basics):
   • TODO folder — Where daily TODO files are stored (default after setup: _TODO).
   • File name suffix — Appended after the date (default: TODO, producing 2025-06-09 TODO.md).
   • TODO tag — Frontmatter tag added to new notes (default: todo).
   • Include heading — Whether to add a # TODO heading below the frontmatter.
2. Create today's note using either:
   • The list-checks ribbon icon (Create today's TODO), or
   • Command palette → Create today's TODO from previous day.
3. If today's file already exists, the plugin opens it instead of creating a duplicate.

Example output

Given incomplete tasks in TODO/2025-06-08 TODO.md, running the command on June 9 creates TODO/2025-06-09 TODO.md:

---
tags: [daily, todo]
date: 2025-06-09
type: daily-todo
rolledOverFrom: "[[2025-06-08 TODO]]"
---

# TODO

- [ ] Finish report
  - [ ] Gather sources
- [ ] Email team

## Notes

The sample yesterday file created during first-run setup demonstrates nested rollover: completed sub-tasks (e.g. - [x] Draft email…) are left behind; incomplete siblings roll forward.

File naming

Daily TODO files must start with a date in YYYY-MM-DD format:

Suffix setting	Example file name
TODO	2025-06-09 TODO.md
(empty)	2025-06-09.md
todo	2025-06-09 todo.md

Note structure

For best results, structure each daily TODO file like this:

# TODO

- [ ] Your tasks here

## Notes

Free-form notes that are never rolled over.

Only content between # TODO and ## Notes (or the next top-level heading) is considered for rollover.

Development

git clone https://github.com/aaronarcade/Obsidian-Daily-Todo.git
cd Obsidian-Daily-Todo
npm install
npm run dev

Symlink or copy the plugin folder into your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory. Use npm run dev for watch mode during development.

Build for production:

npm run build

License

MIT — see LICENSE.