Taskgregator

An aggregator for your native Obsidian tasks, inspired by the best dedicated to-do apps (think Things, Todoist, TickTick).

Taskgregator sucks up every checkbox task across your vault and organizes it by context (Projects, People, Areas, whatever folders you choose), without moving your notes or locking tasks into their own files. Your tasks stay exactly where you wrote them, in the markdown they already live in. Taskgregator just gives you a fast, focused place to see, prioritize, schedule, and complete them.

Think of it as a task dashboard that reads and writes your real notes, not a separate task silo.

Works against plain markdown checkboxes and Tasks-plugin style emoji metadata. No runtime dependency on Dataview or the Tasks plugin.

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Why

Most task plugins either make you adopt a whole new system or isolate each task in its own document. Taskgregator takes the opposite stance:

• Tasks are just markdown checkboxes in your notes. That's the source of truth.
• Where a task lives (and what it links to) is its context. A task in Projects/Website Redesign.md belongs to that project. A task that mentions [[People/Alex]] also belongs to Alex.
• You should be able to see everything in one place, act on it, and jump straight back to the note it came from.

What it looks like

A two-pane view: a context sidebar on the left (smart lists + a roll-up tree of your folders), and a task list on the right.

(Wireframes are intentionally low-fidelity. Names and projects shown are fictional.)

Core ideas

One task, many places

A task is indexed by its location, its [[wikilinks]], its #tags, and its dates, all at once. No duplication, no moving notes around.

So a task authored in a project note that references a person shows up under both that project and that person in the sidebar, and in your date-based smart lists if it has a due date.

Right-click anywhere

Because Taskgregator understands your task lines, you get a context menu on any task line in the normal editor, not just inside the plugin panel. Set priority, add a due date, toggle #today, open a detail note, or reveal the task in the Taskgregator panel.

Features

• Context tree with roll-up counts. Configure which top-level folders become buckets (default: Projects, People, Areas). Files become sub-nodes; parent nodes aggregate everything beneath them.
• Cross-indexing by wikilink. A task that links [[People/Alex]] appears under Alex's node even though it was authored elsewhere.
• Smart lists driven by tags: Today, Follow-up, Snippet Ideas, Someday (all configurable). Plus built-in Today (by due date), Flagged (by priority), and All.
• Inline editing from the panel: toggle done/cancelled, cycle priority, set due/start dates, add tags, jump to source, all written back to the original markdown line.
• Priority using Tasks-plugin emoji signifiers (🔺 ⏫ 🔼) so it stays compatible with what you already use.
• Per-task detail notes (sidecars). Optionally attach a full markdown note to any task for extended context, links, and history. The task gets a lightweight block id (^id) only when you enrich it, and the sidecar backlinks to the source line. A 📝 chip on the card opens it.
• Native right-click menu on task lines across your whole vault.
• Self-contained. Reads and writes markdown directly. No dependency on Dataview or the Tasks plugin at runtime.

Task format

Taskgregator reads standard markdown checkboxes and Tasks-plugin emoji metadata:

- [ ] Open task
- [/] In progress
- [x] Done ✅ 2026-06-30
- [-] Cancelled ❌ 2026-06-30

- [ ] With metadata 📅 2026-07-01 🛫 2026-06-25 🔼 #followup
- [ ] Linked to a person [[People/Alex]] and a project [[Projects/Website Redesign]]

Recognized signifiers:

Signifier	Meaning
📅 YYYY-MM-DD	Due date
🛫 YYYY-MM-DD	Start date
⏳ YYYY-MM-DD	Scheduled
➕ YYYY-MM-DD	Created
✅ YYYY-MM-DD	Completed
❌ YYYY-MM-DD	Cancelled
🔺 ⏫ 🔼 🔽 ⏬	Priority (highest → lowest)
#tag	Smart-list membership
[[link]]	Cross-index target
^blockid	Stable identity (added lazily)

Install

Manual (recommended while in early development)

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Copy them into your vault at <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/taskgregator/.
3. Reload Obsidian, then enable Taskgregator under Settings → Community plugins.

From source

git clone https://github.com/philpalmieri/obsidian-taskgregator.git
cd obsidian-taskgregator
npm install
npm run build

Then copy main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/taskgregator/.

Via BRAT

Add philpalmieri/obsidian-taskgregator as a beta plugin in BRAT.

Usage

• Open the panel from the ribbon (the ✓✓ icon) or run Taskgregator: Open from the command palette.
• Click a smart list or a tree node to filter the task list.
• On a task card: click the checkbox to complete, the flag to cycle priority, the ⋯ menu for dates/detail-note/cancel, a chip to jump to its source, or the 📝 chip to open its detail note.
• Right-click any task line in the editor for the same actions inline.

Settings

• Bucket roots — folders that become top-level context buckets (default Projects, People, Areas).
• Inbox roots — folders treated as a flat inbox instead of per-file (default Dailies).
• Ignore paths — path prefixes to exclude from indexing.
• Priority tags — fallback priority tags (default p1, p2, p3).
• Smart lists — cross-cutting tag lists (Name:tag pairs).
• Detail-note folder — where sidecars are stored (default Taskgregator/tasksData).
• Show completed tasks — include done/cancelled tasks in the index.

Roadmap

• Inline priority/action widgets rendered directly on tasks in live-preview and reading mode.
• "Convert task → Project" to promote a task (and its detail note) into a full project file.
• Nested sub-task hierarchies.
• Saved/custom views and filters.
• Drag to reorder / reschedule.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # watch build
npm run build   # type-check + production bundle

Releases are built and published by the Release plugin GitHub Actions workflow on every x.y.z tag, which also generates artifact attestations so you can cryptographically verify each asset was built from this source.

What data it touches

Taskgregator only reads markdown files inside the folders you configure as bucket roots and inbox roots (by default Projects, People, Areas, and Dailies). It walks those folders directly rather than enumerating your whole vault, so files outside your configured roots are never opened. It does not make network requests, and it only writes back to the specific task lines and optional per-task detail notes you act on.

Source layout:

File	Responsibility
src/parser.ts	Parse markdown lines into task objects; scan the vault.
src/store.ts	Index tasks, build the context tree, cross-index, smart lists.
src/writer.ts	Pure line transforms + write-back via vault.process.
src/view.ts	The panel UI (sidebar + task list).
src/main.ts	Plugin lifecycle, commands, editor context menu.
src/settings.ts	Settings model + settings tab.

License

MIT © Phil Palmieri