NAME

taskrc - Configuration details for the task(1) command

SYNOPSIS

$HOME/.taskrc
task rc:<directory-path>/.taskrc …
TASKRC=<directory-path>/.taskrc task …
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=<directory-path>/task/taskrc task …

DESCRIPTION

Taskwarrior obtains its configuration data from a file called .taskrc . This file is normally located in the user’s home directory:

    $HOME/.taskrc

The default location can be overridden using the rc: attribute when running task:

    $ task rc:<directory-path>/.taskrc ...

or using the TASKRC environment variable:

    $ TASKRC=/tmp/.taskrc task ...

Additionally, if no ~/.taskrc exists, taskwarrior will check if the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable is defined:

    $ XDG_CONFIG_HOME=~/.config task ...

Individual options can be overridden by using the rc.<name>: attribute when running task:

    $ task rc.<name>:<value> ...

    $ task rc.<name>=<value> ...

If Taskwarrior is run without an existing configuration file it will ask if it should create a default, sample .taskrc file in the user’s home directory.

The .taskrc file follows a very simple syntax defining name/value pairs:

    <name> = <value>

There may be whitespace around <name>, ‘=’ and <value>, and it is ignored. Whitespace within the <value> is left intact. Whitespace is not permitted in comma-separated lists. The entry must be on a single line, no continuations. Values support UTF8 as well as JSON encoding, such as \uNNNN.

Note that Taskwarrior is flexible about the values used to represent Boolean items. You can use “1” to enable, anything else is interpreted as disabled. The values “on”, “yes”, “y” and “true” are also supported.

    include <file>

There may be whitespace around ‘include’ and <file>. The file may be an absolute or relative path, and the special character ‘~’ is expanded to mean $HOME. If relative path is specified, the it will be evaluated as relative with respect to the following directories (listed in order of precedence): 1. the current working directory 2. the directory containing the taskrc file 3. the directories set by the package manager (which usually contain pre-defined themes)

Note that environment variables are also expanded in paths (and any other taskrc variables).

    # <comment>

A comment consists of the character ‘#’, and extends from the ‘#’ to the end of the line. There is no way to comment a multi-line block. There may be blank lines.

Almost every value has a default setting, and an empty .taskrc file is one that makes use of every default. The contents of the .taskrc file therefore represent overrides of the default values. To remove a default value completely there must be an entry like this:

    <name> =

This entry overrides the default value with a blank value.

EDITING

You can edit your .taskrc file by hand if you wish, or you can use the ‘config’ command. To permanently set a value in your .taskrc file, use this command:

    $ task config nag "You have more urgent tasks."

To delete an entry, use this command:

    $ task config nag

Taskwarrior will then use the default value. To explicitly set a value to blank, and therefore avoid using the default value, use this command:

    $ task config nag ""

Taskwarrior will also display all your settings with this command:

    $ task show

and in addition, will also perform a check of all the values in the file, warning you of anything it finds amiss.

NESTING CONFIGURATION FILES

The .taskrc can include other files containing configuration settings by using the include statement:

    include <path/to/the/configuration/file/to/be/included>

By using include files you can divide your main configuration file into several ones containing just the relevant configuration data like colors, etc.

There are two excellent uses of includes in your .taskrc, shown here:

    include holidays.en-US.rc
    include dark-16.theme

This includes two standard files that are distributed with Taskwarrior, which define a set of US holidays, and set up a 16-color theme to use, to color the reports and calendar.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

These environment variables override defaults, but not command-line arguments.

TASKDATA=~/.task
This overrides the default path for the Taskwarrior data.

TASKRC=~/.taskrc
This overrides the default RC file.

This environment variable will be checked if ~/.taskrc doesn’t exist

XDG_CONFIG_HOME=~/.config
If set, taskwarrior will look for a $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/task/taskrc file

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES

Valid variable names and their default values are:

FILES

data.location=$HOME/.task
This is a path to the directory containing all the Taskwarrior data. By default, it is set up to be ~/.task, for example: /home/paul/.task

Note that you can use the ~ shell meta character, which will be properly expanded.

Note that the TASKDATA environment variable overrides this setting.

hooks.location=$HOME/.task/hooks
This is a path to the hook scripts directory. By default it is ~/.task/hooks.

gc=1
Can be used to temporarily suspend rebuilding, so that task IDs don’t change. Rebuilding requires read/write access to the database, so disabling `gc` may result in better performance.

Note that this should be used in the form of a command line override (task rc.gc=0 …), and not permanently used in the .taskrc file, as this significantly affects performance in the long term.

purge.on-sync=0
If set, old tasks will be purged automatically after each synchronization. Tasks are identified as “old” when they have status “Deleted” and have not been modified for 180 days.

hooks=1
This master control switch enables hook script processing. The default value is ‘1’, but certain extensions and environments may need to disable hooks.

exit.on.missing.db=0
When set to ‘1’ causes the program to exit if the database (~/.task or rc.data.location or TASKDATA override) is missing. Default value is ‘0’.

TERMINAL

detection=1
Determines whether to use ioctl to establish the size of the window you are using, for text wrapping.

limit:25
Specifies the desired number of tasks a report should show, if a positive integer is given. The value ‘page’ may also be used, and will limit the report output to as many lines of text as will fit on screen. Default value is ‘25’.

defaultwidth=80
The width of output used when auto-detection support is not available. Defaults to 80. If set to 0, it is interpreted as infinite width, therefore with no word-wrapping; this is useful when redirecting report output to a file for subsequent handling.

defaultheight=24
The height of output used when auto-detection support is not available. Defaults to 24. If set to 0, it is interpreted as infinite height. This is useful when redirecting charts to a file for subsequent handling.

avoidlastcolumn=0
Causes the width of the terminal minus one to be used as the full width. This avoids placing color codes in the last column which can cause problems for Cygwin users. Default value is ‘0’.

hyphenate=1
Hyphenates lines when wrapping breaks occur mid-word. Default value is ‘1’.

editor=vi
Specifies which text editor you wish to use for when the task edit <ID> command is used. Taskwarrior will first look for this configuration variable. If found, it is used. Otherwise it will look for the $VISUAL or $EDITOR environment variables, before it defaults to using “vi”.

reserved.lines=1
This is the number of lines reserved at the bottom of the screen for the shell prompt. This is only referenced when ’limit:page’ is used.

MISCELLANEOUS

verbose=1|0|nothing|list…
When set to “1” (the default), helpful explanatory comments are added to all output from Taskwarrior. Setting this to “0” means that you would see regular output.

The special value “nothing” can be used to eliminate all optional output, which results in only the formatted data being shown, with nothing else. This output is most readily parsed and used by shell scripts.

Alternatively, you can specify a comma-separated list of verbosity tokens that control specific occasions when output is generated. This list may contain:

    blank      Inserts extra blank lines in output, for clarity
    header     Messages that appear before report output (this includes .taskrc/.task overrides and the "[task next]" message)
    footnote   Messages that appear after report output (mostly status messages and change descriptions)
    label      Column labels on tabular reports
    new-id     Provides feedback on any new task with IDs (and UUIDs for new tasks with ID 0, such as new completed tasks).
    new-uuid   Provides feedback on any new task with UUIDs. Overrides new-id. Useful for automation.
    news       Reminds to read new release highlights until the user runs "task news".
    affected   Reports 'N tasks affected' and similar
    edit       Used the verbose template for the 'edit' command
    special    Feedback when applying special tags
    project    Feedback about project status changes
    sync       Feedback about sync
    filter     Shows the filter used in the command
    context    Show the current context. Displayed in footnote.
    override   Notification when configuration options are overridden
    recur      Notification when a new recurring task instance is created
    default    Notifications about taskwarrior choosing to perform a default action.

The tokens “affected”, “new-id”, “new-uuid”, “project”, “override” and “recur” imply “footnote”.

The token “default” implies “header”.

Note that the “1” setting is equivalent to all the tokens being specified, and the “nothing” setting is equivalent to none of the tokens being specified.

Here are the shortcut equivalents:

    verbose=on
    verbose=blank,header,footnote,label,new-id,news,affected,edit,special,project,sync,filter,override,recur

    verbose=0
    verbose=blank,label,new-id,edit

    verbose=nothing
    verbose=

Those additional comments are sent to the standard error for header, footnote and project. The others are sent to standard output.

confirmation=1
May be “1” or “0”, and determines whether Taskwarrior will ask for confirmation before deleting a task or performing the undo command. The default value is “1”. Consider leaving this enabled, for safety.

allow.empty.filter=1
An empty filter combined with a write command is potentially a way to modify all tasks by mistake, and when this is detected, confirmation is required. Setting this to ‘0’ means that it is an error to use a write command with no filter.

indent.annotation=2
Controls the number of spaces to indent annotations when shown beneath the description field. The default value is “2”.

indent.report=0
Controls the indentation of the entire report output. Default is “0”.

row.padding=0
Controls left and right padding around each row of the report output. Default is “0”.

column.padding=0
Controls padding between columns of the report output. Default is “1”.

bulk=3
Is a number, defaulting to 3. When this number or greater of tasks are modified in a single command, confirmation will be required, regardless of the value of confirmation variable. The special value bulk=0 is treated as an infinity.

This is useful for preventing large-scale unintended changes.

nag=You have more urgent tasks.
This may be a string of text, or blank. It is used as a prompt when a task is started of completed, when there are other tasks with a higher urgency. Default value is: ‘You have more urgent tasks’. It is a gentle reminder that you are contradicting your own urgency settings.

list.all.projects=0
May be “1” or “0”, and determines whether the ‘projects’ command lists all the project names you have used, or just the ones used in active tasks. The default value is “0”.

summary.all.projects=0
If set to “1”, shows all projects in the summary report, even if there are no pending tasks. The default value is “0”.

complete.all.tags=1
May be “1” or “0”, and determines whether the tab completion scripts consider all the tag names you have used, or just the ones used in active tasks. The default value is “0”.

list.all.tags=1
May be “1” or “0”, and determines whether the ’tags’ command lists all the tag names you have used, or just the ones used in active tasks. The default value is “0”.

print.empty.columns=1
May be “1” or “0”, and determines whether columns with no data for any task are printed. Defaults to “0”.

search.case.sensitive=1
May be “1” or “0”, and determines whether keyword lookup and substitutions on the description and annotations are done in a case sensitive way. Defaults to “1” on most platforms. Defaults to “0” on Cygwin due to older regex library problems with case-insensitivity.

regex=1
Controls whether regular expression support is enabled. The default value is “1”.

xterm.title=1
Sets the xterm window title when reports are run. Defaults to “0”.

expressions=infix|postfix
Sets a preference for infix expressions (1 + 2) or postfix expressions (1 2 +). Defaults to infix.

json.array=1
Determines whether the export command encloses the JSON output in ‘[…]’ and adds ‘,’ after each exported task object to create a properly-formed JSON array. With json.array=0, export writes raw JSON objects to STDOUT, one per line. Defaults to “1”.

_forcecolor=1
Taskwarrior shuts off color automatically when the output is not sent directly to a TTY. For example, this command:

$ task list > file

will not use any color. To override this, use:

$ task rc._forcecolor=yes list > file

Defaults to “0”.

active.indicator=*
The character or string to show in the start.active column. Defaults to *.

tag.indicator=+
The character or string to show in the tag.indicator column. Defaults to +.

dependency.indicator=D
The character or string to show in the depends.indicator column. Defaults to D.

uda.<name>.indicator=U
The character or string to show in the <uda>.indicator column. Defaults to U.

recurrence=1
Controls whether recurrence is enabled, and whether recurring tasks continue to generate new task instances. Defaults to “1”.

If you are syncing multiple clients, then it is advised that you set ‘recurrence=1’ on your primary client, and ‘recurrence=0’ on ALL other clients. This is a workaround for a duplication bug.

recurrence.confirmation=prompt
Controls whether changes to recurring tasks propagates to other child tasks with or without confirmation. A value of ‘yes’ means propagate changes without confirmation. A value of ’no’ means do not propagate changes and don’t ask for confirmation. A value of ‘prompt’ prompts you every time. Defaults to ‘prompt’.

recurrence.indicator=R
The character or string to show in the recurrence_indicator column. Defaults to R.

recurrence.limit=1
The number of future recurring tasks to show. Defaults to 1. For example, if a weekly recurring task is added with a due date of tomorrow, and recurrence.limit is set to 2, then a report will list 2 pending recurring tasks, one for tomorrow, and one for a week from tomorrow.

abbreviation.minimum=2
Minimum length of any abbreviated command/value. This means that “ve”, “ver”, “vers”, “versi”, “versio” will all equate to “version”, but “v” will not. Default is 2.

debug=0
Taskwarrior has a debug mode that causes diagnostic output to be displayed. Typically this is not something anyone would want, but when reporting a bug, debug output can be useful. It can also help explain how the command line is being parsed, but the information is displayed in a developer-friendly, not a user-friendly way.

Turning debug on automatically sets debug.hooks=1 and debug.parser=1 if they do not already have assigned values. Defaults to “0”.

debug.hooks=0
Controls the hook system diagnostic level. Level 0 means no diagnostics. Level 1 shows hook calls. Level 2 also shows exit status and I/O.

debug.parser=0
Controls the parser diagnostic level. Level 0 shows no diagnostics. Level 1 shows the final parse tree. Level 2 shows the parse tree from all phases of the parse. Level 3 shows expression evaluation details.

obfuscate=0
When set to ‘1’, will replace all report text with ‘xxx’. This is useful for sharing report output in bug reports. Default value is ‘0’.

alias.rm=delete
Taskwarrior supports command aliases. This alias provides an alternate name (rm) for the delete command. You can use aliases to provide alternate names for any of the commands. Several commands you may use are actually aliases - the ‘history’ report, for example, or ’export’.

burndown.cumulative=1
May be “1” or “0”, and controls the behaviour of the burndown command. When set to 1, it sums up all completed tasks, otherwise they only get plotted in the interval where the task was completed. Defaults to 1.

DATES

dateformat=Y-M-D

dateformat.report=

dateformat.holiday=YMD

dateformat.edit=Y-M-D H:N:S

dateformat.info=Y-M-D H:N:S

dateformat.annotation=

report.X.dateformat=Y-M-D
This is a string of characters that defines how Taskwarrior formats date values. The precedence order for the configuration variable is report.X.dateformat then dateformat.report then dateformat for formatting the due dates in reports. If both report.X.dateformat and dateformat.report are not set then dateformat will be applied to the date. Entered dates as well as all other displayed dates in reports are formatted according to dateformat.

The default value is the ISO-8601 standard: Y-M-D. The string can contain the characters:

    m  minimal-digit month,    for example 1 or 12
    d  minimal-digit day,      for example 1 or 30
    y  two-digit year,         for example 09 or 12
    D  two-digit day,          for example 01 or 30
    M  two-digit month,        for example 01 or 12
    Y  four-digit year,        for example 2009 or 2015
    a  short name of weekday,  for example Mon or Wed
    A  long name of weekday,   for example Monday or Wednesday
    b  short name of month,    for example Jan or Aug
    B  long name of month,     for example January or August
    v  minimal-digit week,     for example 3 or 37
    V  two-digit week,         for example 03 or 37
    h  minimal-digit hour,     for example 3 or 21
    n  minimal-digit minutes,  for example 5 or 42
    s  minimal-digit seconds,  for example 7 or 47
    H  two-digit hour,         for example 03 or 21
    N  two-digit minutes,      for example 05 or 42
    S  two-digit seconds,      for example 07 or 47
    J  three-digit Julian day, for example 023 or 365
    j  Julian day,             for example 23 or 365
    w  Week day,               for example 0 for Monday, 5 for Friday

The characters ‘v’, ‘V’, ‘a’ and ‘A’ can only be used for formatting printed dates (not to parse them).

The string may also contain other characters to act as spacers, or formatting. Examples for other values of dateformat:

    d/m/Y  would use for input and output 24/7/2009
    yMD    would use for input and output 090724
    M-D-Y  would use for input and output 07-24-2009

Examples for other values of dateformat.report:

    a D b Y (V)   would emit "Fri 24 Jul 2009 (30)"
    A, B D, Y     would emit "Friday, July 24, 2009"
    wV a Y-M-D    would emit "w30 Fri 2009-07-24"
    yMD.HN        would emit "110124.2342"
    m/d/Y H:N     would emit "1/24/2011 10:42"
    a D b Y H:N:S would emit "Mon 24 Jan 2011 11:19:42"

Undefined fields are put to their minimal valid values (1 for month and day and 0 for hour, minutes and seconds) when there is at least one more global date field that is set. Otherwise, they are set to the corresponding values of “now”. For example:

    8/1/2013  with m/d/Y   implies August 1, 2013 at midnight (inferred)
    8/1 20:40 with m/d H:N implies August 1, 2013 (inferred) at 20:40

date.iso=1
Enables ISO-8601 date support. The default value is “1”.

CALENDAR

weekstart=Sunday
Determines the day a week starts. Valid values are Sunday or Monday only. The default value is “Sunday”.

displayweeknumber=1
Determines if week numbers are displayed when using the “task calendar” command. The week number is dependent on the day a week starts. The default value is “1”.

due=7
This is the number of days into the future that define when a task is considered due, and is colored accordingly. The default value is 7.

calendar.details=sparse
If set to “full” running “task calendar” will display the details of tasks with due dates that fall into the calendar period. The corresponding days will be color-coded in the calendar. If set to “sparse” only the corresponding days will be color coded and no details will be displayed. The displaying of due dates with details is turned off by setting the variable to “none”. The default value is “sparse”.

calendar.details.report=list
The report to run when displaying the details of tasks with due dates when running the “task calendar” command. The default value is “list”.

calendar.offset=0
If “1” the first month in the calendar report is effectively changed by the offset value specified in calendar.offset.value. It defaults to “0”.

calendar.offset.value=-1
The offset value to apply to the first month in the calendar report. The default value is “-1”.

calendar.holidays=none
If set to full running “task calendar” will display holidays in the calendar by color-coding the corresponding days. A detailed list with the dates and names of the holidays is also shown. If set to sparse only the days are color-coded and no details on the holidays will be displayed. The displaying of holidays is turned off by setting the variable to none. The default value is “none”.

calendar.legend=1
Determines whether the calendar legend is displayed. The default value is “1”.

calendar.monthsperline=N
Determines how many months the “task calendar” command renders across the screen. Defaults to however many will fit. If more months than will fit are specified, Taskwarrior will only show as many that will fit.

JOURNAL ENTRIES

journal.time=0
May be “1” or “0”, and determines whether the ‘start’ and ‘stop’ commands should record an annotation when being executed. The default value is “0”. The text of the corresponding annotations is controlled by:

journal.time.start.annotation=Started task
The text of the annotation that is recorded when executing the start command and having set journal.time.

journal.time.stop.annotation=Stopped task
The text of the annotation that is recorded when executing the stop command and having set journal.time.

journal.info=1
When enabled, this setting causes a change log of each task to be displayed by the ‘info’ command. Default value is “1”.

HOLIDAYS

Holidays are entered either directly in the .taskrc file or via an include file that is specified in .taskrc. For single-day holidays the name and the date is required to be given:

    holiday.towel.name=Day of the towel
    holiday.towel.date=20100525

For holidays that span a range of days (i.e. vacation), you can use a start date and an end date:

    holiday.sysadmin.name=System Administrator Appreciation Week
    holiday.sysadmin.start=20100730
    holiday.sysadmin.end=20100805

Dates are to be entered according to the setting in the dateformat.holiday variable.

The following holidays are computed automatically: Good Friday (goodfriday), Easter (easter), Easter Monday (eastermonday), Ascension (ascension), Pentecost (pentecost). The date for these holidays is the given keyword:

    holiday.eastersunday.name=Easter
    holiday.eastersunday.date=easter

Note that the Taskwarrior distribution contains example holiday files that can be included like this:

    include holidays.en-US.rc

DEPENDENCIES

dependency.reminder=1
Determines whether dependency chain violations generate reminders.

dependency.confirmation=1
Determines whether dependency chain repair requires confirmation.

COLOR CONTROLS

color=1
May be “1” or “0”. Determines whether Taskwarrior uses color. When “0”, will use dashes (—–) to underline column headings.

fontunderline=1
Determines if font underlines or ASCII dashes should be used to underline headers, even when color is enabled.

Taskwarrior has a number of coloration rules. They correspond to a particular attribute of a task, such as it being due, or being active, and specifies the automatic coloring of that task. A list of valid colors, depending on your terminal, can be obtained by running the command:

task colors

Note that no default values are listed here - the defaults now correspond to the dark-256.theme (Linux) and dark-16.theme (other) theme values. The coloration rules are as follows:

color.due.today Task is due today
color.active Task is started, therefore active.
color.scheduled Task is scheduled, therefore ready for work.
color.until Task has an expiration date.
color.blocking Task is blocking another in a dependency.
color.blocked Task is blocked by a dependency.
color.overdue Task is overdue (due some time prior to now).
color.due Task is coming due.
color.project.none Task does not have an assigned project.
color.tag.none Task has no tags.
color.tagged Task has at least one tag.
color.recurring Task is recurring.
color.completed Task is completed.
color.deleted Task is deleted.

To disable a coloration rule for which there is a default, set the value to nothing, for example:
    color.tagged=
By default, colors produced by rules blend. This has the advantage of conveying additional information, by producing combinations that are not used by any particular rule directly.
However, color blending can produce highlighting combinations which are not desired. In such cases, use the following option to disable this behaviour:
rule.color.merge=1
Can be “1” or “0”. When “0”, disables merging of colors produced by different color rules. Use if your color scheme produces unpleasing foreground and background combinations.
See the task-color(5) man pages for color details.

Certain attributes like tags, projects and keywords can have their own coloration rules.

color.tag.X=yellow
Colors any task that has the tag X.

color.project.X=on green
Colors any task assigned to project X.

color.keyword.X=on blue
Colors any task where the description or any annotation contains X.

color.uda.X=on green
Colors any task that has the user defined attribute X.

color.uda.X.VALUE=on green
Colors any task that has the user defined attribute X set to VALUE.

color.uda.X.none=on green
Colors any task that does not have the user defined attribute X.

color.error=white on red
Colors any of the error messages.

color.warning=bold red
Colors any of the warning messages.

color.header=green
Colors any of the messages printed prior to the report output.

color.footnote=green
Colors any of the messages printed last.

color.summary.bar=on green
Colors the summary progress bar. Should consist of a background color.

color.summary.background=on black
Colors the summary progress bar. Should consist of a background color.

color.calendar.today=black on cyan
Color of today in calendar.

color.calendar.due=black on green
Color of days with due tasks in calendar.

color.calendar.due.today=black on magenta
Color of today with due tasks in calendar.

color.calendar.overdue=black on red
Color of days with overdue tasks in calendar.

color.calendar.scheduled=black on orange
Color of days with scheduled tasks in calendar.

color.calendar.weekend=bright white on black
Color of weekend days in calendar.

color.calendar.holiday=black on bright yellow
Color of holidays in calendar.

color.calendar.weeknumber=black on white
Color of weeknumbers in calendar.

color.label=
Colors the report labels. Defaults to not use color.

color.label.sort=
Colors the report labels for sort columns. Defaults to color.label.

color.alternate=on rgb253
Color of alternate tasks. This is to apply a specific color to every other task in a report, which can make it easier to visually separate tasks. This is especially useful when tasks are displayed over multiple lines due to long descriptions or annotations.

color.history.add=on red

color.history.done=on green

color.history.delete=on yellow

Colors the bars on the ghistory report graphs. Defaults to red, green and yellow bars.

color.burndown.pending=on red

color.burndown.started=on yellow

color.burndown.done=on green

Colors the bars on the burndown reports graphs. Defaults to red, green and yellow bars.

color.undo.before=red

color.undo.after=green

Colors used by the undo command, to indicate the values both before and after a change that is to be reverted.
Currently not supported.

color.sync.added=green

color.sync.changed=yellow

color.sync.rejected=red

Colors the output of the sync command.

rule.precedence.color=due.today,active,blocking,blocked,overdue,due,
scheduled,keyword.,project.,tag.,uda.,recurring, tagged,completed,deleted

This setting specifies the precedence of the color rules, from highest to lowest. Note that the prefix ‘color.’ is omitted (for brevity), and that any wildcard value (color.tag.XXX) is shortened to ’tag.’, which places all specific tag rules at the same precedence, again for brevity.

color.debug=green

Colors all debug output, if enabled.

URGENCY

The urgency calculation uses a polynomial with several terms, each of which has a configurable coefficient. Those coefficients are:

urgency.blocking.coefficient=8.0

Urgency coefficient for blocking tasks

urgency.blocked.coefficient=-5.0

Urgency coefficient for blocked tasks

urgency.due.coefficient=12.0

Urgency coefficient for due dates

urgency.waiting.coefficient=-3.0

Urgency coefficient for waiting status

urgency.active.coefficient=4.0

Urgency coefficient for active tasks

urgency.scheduled.coefficient=5.0

Urgency coefficient for scheduled tasks

urgency.project.coefficient=1.0

Urgency coefficient for projects

urgency.tags.coefficient=1.0

Urgency coefficient for tags

urgency.annotations.coefficient=1.0

Urgency coefficient for annotations

urgency.age.coefficient=2.0

Urgency coefficient for the age of tasks

urgency.age.max=365

Maximum age in days. After this number of days has elapsed, the urgency of a task won’t increase any more because of aging.

urgency.user.tag.<tag>.coefficient=…

Specific tag coefficient.

urgency.user.tag.next.coefficient=15.0

Urgency coefficient for tag ’next’.

urgency.user.project.<project>.coefficient=…

Specific project coefficient.

urgency.user.keyword.<keyword>.coefficient=…

Specific description keyword coefficient.

urgency.uda.<name>.coefficient=…

Presence/absence of UDA data.

urgency.uda.<name>.<value>.coefficient=…

Specific value of UDA data.

The coefficients reflect the relative importance of the various terms in the urgency calculation. These are default values, and may be modified to suit your preferences, but it is important that you carefully consider any modifications.

urgency.inherit=0

Not actually a coefficient. When enabled, blocking tasks inherit the highest urgency value found in the tasks they block. This is done recursively. It is recommended to set urgency.blocking.coefficient and urgency.blocked.coefficient to 0.0 in order for this setting to be the most useful.

DEFAULTS

default.project=foo
Provides a default project name for the task add command, if you don’t specify one. The default is blank.

default.due=…
Provides a default due date for the task add command, if you don’t specify one. You can use a date, or a duration value which is assumed to be relative to ’now’. The default is blank.

default.scheduled=…
Provides a default scheduled date for the task add command, if you don’t specify one. You can use a date, or a duration value which is assumed to be relative to ’now’. The default is blank.

uda.<name>.default=…
Provides default values for UDA fields when using the task add command, if you don’t specify values. The default is blank.

default.command=next
Provides a default command that is run every time Taskwarrior is invoked with no arguments. For example, if set to:

    default.command=project:foo list

then Taskwarrior will run the “project:foo list” command if no command is specified. This means that by merely typing

    $ task
    [task project:foo list]

    ID Project Pri Description
     1 foo     H   Design foo
     2 foo         Build foo

REPORTS

The reports can be customized by using the following configuration variables. The output columns, their labels and the sort order can be set using the corresponding variables for each report. Each report name is used as a “command” name. For example

task overdue

report.X.description
The description for report X when running the “task help” command.

report.X.columns
This is a comma-separated list of columns and formatting specifiers. See the command ’task columns’ for a full list of options and examples.

report.X.context
A boolean value representing whether the given report should respect (apply) the currently active context. See CONTEXT section for details about context. Defaults to 1.

report.X.labels
The labels for each column that will be used when generating report X. The labels are a comma separated list.

report.X.sort
The sort order of the tasks in the generated report X. The sort order is specified by using the column ids post-fixed by a “+” for ascending sort order or a “-” for descending sort order. The sort IDs are separated by commas. For example:

    report.list.sort=due+,priority-,start.active-,project+

Additionally, after the “+” or “-”, there can be a solidus “/” which indicates that there are breaks after the column values change. For example:

    report.minimal.sort=project+/,description+

This sort order now specifies that there is a listing break between each project. A listing break is simply a blank line, which provides a visual grouping.

A special sort value of “none” indicates that no sorting is required, and tasks will be presented in the order (if any) in which they are selected.

report.X.filter
This adds a filter to the report X so that only tasks matching the filter criteria are displayed in the generated report.

There is a special case for ‘report.timesheet.filter’, which may be specified even though the ’timesheet’ report is not very customizable.

report.X.dateformat
This adds a dateformat to the report X that will be used by the “due date” column. If it is not set then dateformat.report and dateformat will be used in this order. See the DATES section for details on the sequence placeholders.

report.X.annotations
This adds the possibility to control the output of annotations for a task in a report. Deprecated. Use the description column with a format (e.g., description.count) instead.

Taskwarrior comes with a number of predefined reports, which are:

next
Lists the most important tasks.

long
Lists all pending tasks and all data, matching the specified criteria.

list
Lists all tasks matching the specified criteria.

ls
Short listing of all tasks matching the specified criteria.

minimal
Minimal listing of all tasks matching the specified criteria.

newest
Shows the newest tasks.

oldest
Shows the oldest tasks.

overdue
Lists overdue tasks matching the specified criteria.

active
Lists active tasks matching the specified criteria.

completed
Lists completed tasks matching the specified criteria.

recurring
Lists recurring tasks matching the specified criteria.

waiting
Lists all waiting tasks matching the specified criteria.

all
Lists all tasks matching the specified criteria.

blocked
Lists all tasks that have dependencies.

USER DEFINED ATTRIBUTES

User defined attributes (UDAs) are an extension mechanism that allows you to define new attributes for Taskwarrior to store and display. One such example is an ’estimate’ attribute that could be used to store time estimates associated with a task. This ’estimate’ attribute is not built in to Taskwarrior, but with a few simple configuration settings you can instruct Taskwarrior to store this item, and provide access to it for custom reports and filters.

This allows you to augment Taskwarrior to accommodate your workflow, or bend the rules and use Taskwarrior to store and synch data that is not necessarily task-related.

One important restriction is that because this is an open system that allows the definition of any new attribute, Taskwarrior cannot understand the meaning of that attribute. So while Taskwarrior will faithfully store, modify, report, sort and filter your UDA, it does not understand anything about it. For example if you define a UDA named ’estimate’, Taskwarrior will not know that this value is weeks, hours, minutes, money, or some other resource count.

uda.<name>.type=string|numeric|date|duration

Defines a UDA called ‘<name>’, of the specified type.

uda.<name>.label=<column heading>

Provides a default report label for the UDA called ‘<name>’.

uda.<name>.values=A,B,C

For type ‘string’ UDAs only, this provides a comma-separated list of acceptable values. In this example, the ‘<name>’ UDA may only contain values ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’, but may also contain no value.

Note that the order of the value is important, and denotes the sort order from highest (‘A’) to lowest (‘C’).

Note that a blank value is permitted.

uda.<name>.default=…

Provides a default value for the UDA called ‘<name>’.

Example ’estimate’ UDA
This example shows an ’estimate’ UDA that stores specific values for the size of a task. Note the blank value after ’trivial’.

uda.estimate.type=string
uda.estimate.label=Size Estimate
uda.estimate.values=huge,large,medium,small,trivial,

Note that the value are sorted
huge > large > medium > small > trivial > '’

CONTEXT

Context setting is a mechanism which allows the user to set a permanent filter, thus avoiding the need to specify one filter repeatedly. More details on usage can be found in the task(1) man page.

The current context is stored in the .taskrc file, along with definitions for all user provided contexts.

context=<name>

Stores the value of the currently active context.

context.<name>.read=<filter>

context.<name>.write=<modifications>

Stores the definition of the read or write context with the name <name>. Read context is the default filter applied when the context is active. The write context are the default modifications applied to newly added tasks when the context is active.

context.<name>.rc.<key>=<value>

The rc type allows to override any configuration parameter for the current context, e.g. if the default command for the context home should be changed to home_report, the following statement could be added:

context.home.rc.default.command=home_report

SYNC

These configuration settings are used to connect and sync tasks with the task server.

CREDITS & COPYRIGHTS

This man page was originally written by Federico Hernandez.

Taskwarrior is distributed under the MIT license. See https://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php for more information.

REPORTING BUGS

Bugs in Taskwarrior may be reported to the issue-tracker at
<https://github.com/GothenburgBitFactory/taskwarrior/issues>