Vault Task Planner

A planning companion for the Obsidian Tasks plugin.

The idea is simple: capture tasks freely, anywhere in your vault, without worrying about dates. Then, when it's time to plan — open this view, see everything at once, and distribute your tasks across the coming weeks.

That's it. This plugin does one thing.

The workflow

1. Capture — Write tasks wherever they belong, in whatever note makes sense. Don't force a date. Just get them down.

- [ ] Review Q3 budget
- [ ] Call supplier about delivery
- [ ] Draft onboarding doc for new hire

2. Plan — Open Vault Task Planner when you're ready to plan (weekly review, Monday morning, whenever). You'll see every incomplete task in your vault — dated and undated — in a single view.

3. Schedule — Drag tasks from the Unscheduled pile into the timeline. Assign a date type (due, start, before, end) and pick a date. The plugin writes directly back to the source note — no copy-pasting.

What this plugin is (and isn't)

It is a dedicated planning surface. One screen, all your tasks, a timeline to fill.

It is not a full task manager, a project tracker, or a replacement for the Tasks plugin. It reads from Tasks and writes back to it. Think of it as the planning session you were already doing manually — now with a UI.

Features

Unscheduled + scheduled in one view

Every incomplete task in your vault appears here — those with a date in their assigned column, those without in the Unscheduled section below the timeline.

Timeline

• Sliding window: −1 week → today → +4 weeks
• Tasks land in the column matching their primary date
• Current day is highlighted
• Tasks older than the window appear in a separate Overdue section

In-place scheduling

Click + Date on any task to open an inline editor. Pick the type and the date — the plugin updates the source file immediately:

Task completion

Tick the ☐ checkbox next to any task to mark it done. The change is written atomically to the source file; the task disappears from the view on the next refresh.

Filters

Filter by source note or date type to focus on a specific area of your vault during planning.

Supported date formats

The scanner reads both the Tasks plugin emoji syntax and Dataview inline fields. Dates are always written back in the Tasks emoji format.

Requirements

• Obsidian 1.4.0 or later
• Tasks plugin (recommended — this plugin is built around its format)

Installation

From a release (quickest)

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create the folder <your-vault>/.obsidian/plugins/vault-task-planner/.
3. Copy the three files into that folder.
4. In Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → reload, then enable Vault Task Planner.

Build from source — Docker (no npm on the host)

git clone [email protected]:giacomoleonzi/vault-task-planner-obsidian.git
cd vault-task-planner-obsidian
./build.sh

build.sh compiles everything inside a Docker container and outputs main.js to the project root. Then install as above.

Build from source — local npm

npm install
npm run build

Requires Node 18+.

Opening the planner

• Ribbon — click the calendar icon in the left sidebar
• Command palette — Vault Task Planner: Open Task Planner

The view opens in the right sidebar. Click any task text to jump to its source note at the exact line.

Project structure

vault-task-planner/
├── src/
│   ├── main.ts              # Entry point — view, ribbon, command
│   ├── TaskPlannerView.ts   # Main ItemView (timeline + list + editor)
│   ├── taskScanner.ts       # Vault scan → VaultTask[]
│   ├── taskParser.ts        # Date tag parsing & serialisation
│   ├── taskWriter.ts        # Atomic write-back via vault.process()
│   └── types.ts             # VaultTask, TaskDate, DateType
├── styles.css
├── manifest.json
├── esbuild.config.mjs
├── Dockerfile
└── build.sh

Known limitations

• The scanner reads all Markdown files on every refresh. Incremental scanning via metadataCache is planned for larger vaults.
• If a line shifts in the source file between the last scan and a write (concurrent edit elsewhere), the write may land on the wrong line. Re-opening the view forces a fresh scan.

Status & contributing

Active development on the dev branch — core features work, rough edges remain.

PRs and issues welcome. Please target dev, not main.

License

MIT