Obsidian Taskman

An offline Obsidian task manager for today's daily note.

The manager opens as a full workspace tab and includes every daily-task status: [ ] (to do), [b] (backlog), [q] (queued), [/] (in progress), [x] (done), and [-] (cancelled). It owns the status, priority, and recurrence annotations it reads and writes; no other task-management plugin is required.

Tasks remain in the daily note as the source of truth. The manager uses a standard H2 area, H3 project, and optional H4 task-section hierarchy. A non-task bullet containing child tasks is shown as a titled container inside its project or task section. The manager supports text, area, project, task-section, status, and priority filters, and can create, edit, and delete tasks. The source button beside a task opens its exact line in the daily note.

How it works

The plugin is a focused working view for one daily note at a time. It does not keep a separate task database: every change made in the manager is written back to today's Markdown file, and edits made directly in that file refresh the manager automatically. Open Today's task manager from the command palette or ribbon to work with the note for the configured date, folder, and filename format.

The intended daily cycle is:

1. At the beginning of the day, run Start today's tasks from the previous daily note. This creates today's daily note when needed and brings forward work that is still active.
2. Use the manager or the daily note to add tasks, change statuses, and set priority.
3. Filter the note down to the work you want to focus on. The plugin restores those filters when Obsidian reopens on the same date.
4. On the next working day, run the start command again. Rollover uses the most recent earlier matching daily note, so skipped days do not break the flow.

Filter state is stored separately for each daily-note path. A new date starts with every status and priority visible, giving you the full rolled-over picture before you choose that day's focus.

Android home-screen shortcut

Open obsidian://obsidian-taskman on Android to launch Obsidian directly into Today's task manager. Because this is a custom URI rather than an HTTP URL, Chrome and the website mode in shortcut apps may report it as invalid. Create an Android intent shortcut instead.

Using Shortcut Maker:

1. Select Activities.
2. Select Obsidian, then select md.obsidian.MainActivity.
3. Open the shortcut's intent configuration.
4. Change Action from android.intent.action.MAIN to android.intent.action.VIEW.
5. Set Data to obsidian://obsidian-taskman.
6. Keep the component set to md.obsidian.MainActivity, choose a name and icon, and select Create shortcut.

The target vault must have this plugin installed and enabled. When Obsidian is closed, Android may briefly show the last-used vault while Obsidian starts and loads the plugin before opening the task manager.

Rollover behavior

Rollover is deliberate: it runs only when you select Start today's tasks or run its command. It looks for the latest earlier note directly inside the configured daily notes folder; with the defaults, on July 10, 2026 it looks for notes named like Daily Notes/2026-07-09.md, then earlier matching dates if necessary.

• To-do ([ ]), backlog ([b]), queued ([q]), and in-progress ([/]) tasks are copied to today's note unchanged.
• Completed ([x]) and cancelled ([-]) tasks are not normally copied.
• A completed recurring task ([x] ... 🔁) is copied as a new to-do task ([ ] ... 🔁). Its completed copy remains in the older note.
• Relevant area, project, task-section, and titled-container lines are kept around the tasks that move forward, so the resulting note preserves its working structure.

By default, Archive the previous task tree is enabled. After a successful rollover, it rewrites the previous managed section so it retains terminal tasks and removes active tasks that were moved to today. Turn this setting off to leave the previous note untouched.

The plugin protects existing work: it will not roll over into a non-empty destination task section. Empty managed sections are safe to populate. When the source and destination use the configured markers, only the content between them is read or changed. The default markers are:

<!-- task-tree:start -->

<!-- task-tree:end -->

Markers are optional for viewing and editing—every task in the current daily note is visible in the manager. However, without markers, rollover treats the entire source file as the task tree. In particular, enabling source archiving without markers can replace the earlier note with its archived task tree, so use markers whenever the note also contains journal text, templates, or other content you want to preserve.

Daily note formatting

The view reads the note whose path matches the configured daily notes folder and date format. With the defaults, the source for July 10, 2026 is Daily Notes/2026-07-10.md.

Standard hierarchy

The view assigns a fixed meaning to each heading level:

• H2 is an area, a broad context such as Research or Operations.
• H3 is a project inside the current area, such as Research › Documentation.
• H4 is an optional task section inside the current project, such as Research › Documentation › Drafting.

Tasks may be placed directly below an H3 project or below an H4 task section:

## Research

### Documentation

- [ ] Review the source material

#### Drafting

- [ ] Prepare the first draft

This produces the area Research, the project Documentation, one task directly in the project, and one task in its Drafting task section. The layout exposes areas and projects as quick filters and renders the same hierarchy in the results.

Tasks outside the H2/H3 structure remain visible under Unassigned so formatting mistakes can be corrected without losing access to a task. The Add task dialog lists every existing H3 project and H4 task section as a destination. Create the headings in the daily note before adding the first task to a new project.

Titled task containers

A regular, non-task list item becomes a titled container when tasks are indented beneath it:

## Research

### Documentation

- Content review
	- [ ] Review the draft
	- [ ] Check the links
	- [ ] Record the remaining changes

The project remains Research › Documentation. Inside it, the three tasks are displayed together in a bordered container titled Content review.

The child tasks must have greater indentation than the title bullet. Tabs and spaces are both supported. A non-task bullet without nested tasks does not create anything in the view.

Nested tasks under another checkbox remain ordinary nested tasks; the parent checkbox is not used as a container title.

Supported tasks and statuses

Tasks must use a Markdown list marker (-, *, or +), a one-character checkbox, and task text:

- [ ] To do
- [b] Backlog
- [q] Queued
- [/] In progress
- [x] Done
- [-] Cancelled

Only these statuses are managed by the view. Changing a status in the manager updates only the checkbox symbol on the corresponding source line.

Task annotations

The plugin uses these built-in annotation defaults:

• Status: the checkbox symbols shown above.
• Priority: ⏫ highest, 🔼 high, no marker for normal, 🔽 low, and ⏬ lowest.
• Recurring: 🔁. By default, each section/container is sorted by status and then by priority. The view can also display source order or sort by priority in either direction; sorting the view does not reorder the Markdown source.

Use the View section below the filters to switch between the hierarchical Area and project view and a flat List view. The list keeps the selected sort order across all filtered tasks and shows each task's area, project, and optional task section as context.

Additional notes

• The entire current daily note is scanned; <!-- task-tree:start --> and <!-- task-tree:end --> markers are compatible but not required by this plugin.
• Markdown formatting, Obsidian links, and unrecognized metadata can remain in task text.
• Indented Markdown owned by a task is available from the collapsible Task content area on its card.
• Task content and linked task-note previews are read and rendered only when their collapsible areas are expanded. Expanding Markdown that references external images or resources may allow Obsidian to load those resources.
• H2, H3, and H4 headings and container titles may contain highlight markup, emphasis, or Obsidian links. The view derives a clean text label from them.
• Preserve task indentation when editing the daily note so containers and nested-task relationships remain unambiguous.

Development

Run npm install, then use npm run dev for a watch build, npm run build for a production build, npm test for the regression suite, and npm run lint for static checks. Reload Obsidian after the build and enable the plugin in Settings → Community plugins.

The default daily note path is Daily Notes/YYYY-MM-DD.md. Both the folder and date format can be changed in the plugin settings. The plugin runs locally and does not send vault data anywhere.