task-dag

a dag (directed acyclic graph)-based task manager that shows only actionable tasks

the problem

standard todo lists lack hierarchy. a list of 50 items may only have 3 actionable items since the others depend on those three.

the solution

model tasks as a directed acyclic graph. this program's default output shows tasks with zero uncompleted dependencies.

building

make
make setup	# optional, move config to ~/.config/task-dag/config
make install	# optional, to /usr/local/bin

file format

# comments start with octothorpe

[ ] task name
[ ] task with deps -> dep1, dep2
[ ] high priority task !high
[ ] low priority task !low -> dep1
[x] completed task

dependencies are comma-separated task names. task names are everything between the checkbox and arrow.

priorities can be specified with !high, !med, or !low at the end of the task name (before the arrow if dependencies exist). default priority is !med. tasks are sorted by priority (high > med > low) in all outputs.

sub-commands

task-dag [file] next		# show actionable tasks (no pending deps)
task-dag [file] list		# show all tasks with their status
task-dag [file] complete	# mark a task complete (reads name from stdin)
task-dag done			# mark next task complete
task-dag [file] block		# show what's blocking each pending task
task-dag [file] graph		# output dot format for graphviz

If no file is specified, looks for: $TASKDAG_FILE, tasks.dag, tasks.txt, todo.dag, todo.txt (in that order).

workflow

1. brain dump all tasks into a file
2. run task-dag next
3. pick one and do it
4. run echo "task name" | task-dag complete
5. repeat from step 2

you can also use fzf:

task-dag next | fzf | task-dag complete

visualization

if you have graphviz, you can visualize it like this:

task-dag graph | dot -Tpng -o tasks.png

on development

i wrote this to learn c++ for a job interview, as well as to benefit myself by more formalizing my todo workflow. i can't promise my work here is that great, since i'm not a massive fan of oop (read: skill issue). would eventually like to do a rewrite in c. as such, this is public domain.

EDIT: looks like i use this every day now :P so i guess i'm going to do some more work on it over the coming months in my spare time. maybe a rewrite will come, but as a result of the interview i have to keep working with c++ >:D