NAME¶

taskrc - Configuration file for the task(1) command

SYNOPSIS¶

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

DESCRIPTION¶

taskwarrior obtains its configuration data from a file called .taskrc . This file is normally located in the user's home directory: The default location can be overridden using the rc: attribute when running task: or using the TASKRC environment variable: Individual options can be overridden by using the rc.<name>: attribute when running task: or 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 taskwarrior configuration file consists of a series of assignments in each line. The assignments have the syntax: where: and set a configuration variable to a certain value. The equal sign ("=") is used to separate the variable name from the value to be set. The hash mark, or pound sign ("#") is used as a comment character. It can be used to annotate the configuration file. All text after the character to the end of the line is ignored. The configuration file supports 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 "on", "yes", "y", "1" and "true". Anything else means "off".

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: To delete an entry, use this command: Taskwarrior will then use the default value. To explicitly set a value to blank, and therefore avoid using the default value, use this command: Taskwarrior will also display all your settings with this command: 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: 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: 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 and command line arguments.

TASKDATA=~/.task

This overrides the default path for the taskwarrior data files.

TASKRC=~/.taskrc

This overrides the default RC 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 files. 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.

locking=on

Determines whether to use file locking when accessing the pending.data and completed.data files. Defaults to "on". Solaris users who store the data files on an NFS mount may need to set locking to "off". Note that there is danger in setting this value to "off" - another program (or another instance of task) may write to the task.pending file at the same time.

gc=on

Can be used to temporarily suspend garbage collection (gc), so that task IDs don't change. Note that this should be used in the form of a command line override (task rc.gc=off ...), and not permanently used in the .taskrc file, as this significantly affects performance in the long term.

exit.on.missing.db=no

When set to 'yes' causes the program to exit if the database (~/.task or rc.data.location or TASKDATA override) is missing. Default value is 'no'.

TERMINAL¶

detection=on

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

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=no

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 'no'.

hyphenate=on

Hyphenates lines when wrapping breaks occur mid-word. Default value is 'on'.

editor=editor

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 "editor".

edit.verbose=on

When set to on (the default), helpful explanatory comments are added to the edited file when using the "task edit ..." command. Setting this to off means that you would see a smaller, more compact representation of the task, with no help text. Deprecated - use verbosity token 'edit'.

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=on|off|nothing|list...

When set to "on" (the default), helpful explanatory comments are added to all output from Taskwarrior. Setting this to "off" 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
footnote Messages that appear after report output
label Column labels on tabular reports
new-id Provides feedback of any new task IDs
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 the need for sync

Note that the "on" 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,affected,edit,special,project,sync

verbose=off
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=yes

May be "yes" or "no", and determines whether taskwarrior will ask for confirmation before deleting a task, performing bulk changes, or the undo command. The default value is "yes". Consider leaving this setting as "yes", for safety.

echo.command=yes

May be "yes" or "no", and causes the display of the ID and description of any task when you run the start, stop, do, undo or delete commands. The default value is "yes". Deprecated - use verbosity tokens 'header' and 'affected'.

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, unless the confirmation variable is "no".

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 or completed that is not considered high priority. Default value is: You have more urgent tasks. It is a gentle reminder that you are contradicting your own priority settings.

complete.all.projects=yes

May be yes or no, and determines whether the tab completion scripts consider all the project names you have used, or just the ones used in active tasks. The default value is "no".

list.all.projects=yes

May be yes or no, 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 "no".

complete.all.tags=yes

May be yes or no, 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 "no".

list.all.tags=yes

May be yes or no, 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 "no".

print.empty.columns=no

May be yes or no, and determines whether columns with no data for any task are printed. Defaults to no.

search.case.sensitive=yes

May be yes or no, and determines whether keyword lookup and substitutions on the description and annotations are done in a case sensitive way. Defaults to yes.

regex=off

Controls whether regular expression support is enabled. The default value is off, because this advanced feature could cause confusion among users that are not comfortable with regular expressions.

xterm.title=no

Sets the xterm window title when reports are run. Defaults to off.

patterns=on

Enables or disables pattern support on the command line, such as /foo/. Defaults to on.

expressions=on

Enables or disables algebraic expression support on the command line, such as "due<eom and (pri=H or pri=M)". Defaults to on.

dom=on

Enables or disables access to taskwarrior internals and task metadata on the command line. Defaults to on.

json.array=off

Determines whether the query command encloses the JSON output in '[...]' to create a properly-formed JSON array. Defaults to off.

_forcecolor=no

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

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 +.

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.

undo.style=side

When the 'undo' command is run, taskwarrior presents a before and after comparison of the data. This can be in either the 'side' style, which compares values side-by-side in a table, or 'diff' style, which uses a format similar to the 'diff' command.

burndown.bias=0.666

The burndown bias is a number that lies within the range 0 <= bias <= 1. The bias is the fraction of the find/fix rates derived from the short-term data (last 25% of the report) versus the longer term data (last 50% of the report). A value of 0.666 (the default) means that the short-term rate has twice the weight of the longer-term rate. The calculation is as follows:

rate = (long-term-rate * (1 - bias)) + (short-term-rate * bias)

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=off

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.

debug.tls=0

Controls the GnuTLS log level. For 'sync' debugging.

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'.

EXTENSIONS¶

extensions=on

Enables the extension system. Defaults to on.

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 formating 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:

weekstart=Sunday

Determines the day a week starts. Valid values are Sunday or Monday only. The default value is "Sunday".

displayweeknumber=yes

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 "yes".

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=off

If "on" the first month in the calendar report is effectively changed by the offset value specified in calendar.offset.value. It defaults to "off".

calendar.offset.value=-1

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

calendar.holidays=full

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=yes

Determines whether the calendar legend is displayed. The default value is "yes".

JOURNAL ENTRIES¶

journal.time=no

May be yes or no, and determines whether the 'start' and 'stop' commands should record an annotation when being executed. The default value is "no". 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=on

When enabled, this setting causes a change log of each task to be displayed by the 'info' command. Default value is "on".

HOLIDAYS¶

Holidays are entered either directly in the .taskrc file or via an include file that is specified in .taskrc. For each holiday the name and the date is required to be given: Note that the taskwarrior distribution contains example holiday files that can be included like this:

monthsperline=3

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.

DEPENDENCIES¶

dependency.reminder=on

Determines whether dependency chain violations generate reminders.

dependency.confirmation=yes

Determines whether dependency chain repair requires confirmation.

COLOR CONTROLS¶

color=on

May be "on" or "off". Determines whether taskwarrior uses color. When "off", will use dashes (-----) to underline column headings.

fontunderline=on

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: 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.error=green

Colors any of the error 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.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.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

color.burndown.pending=on red

color.burndown.started=on yellow color.burndown.done=on green

color.undo.before=red

color.undo.after=green

color.sync.added=green

color.sync.changed=yellow color.sync.rejected=red

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

color.debug=green

URGENCY¶

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

urgency.next.coefficient=15.0

urgency.blocking.coefficient=8.0 urgency.blocked.coefficient=-5.0 urgency.due.coefficient=12.0 urgency.priority.coefficient=6.0 urgency.waiting.coefficient=-3.0 urgency.active.coefficient=4.0 urgency.scheduled.coefficient=5.0 urgency.project.coefficient=1.0 urgency.tags.coefficient=1.0 urgency.annotations.coefficient=1.0 urgency.age.coefficient=2.0 urgency.age.max=365 urgency.user.tag.<tag>.coefficient=... urgency.user.project.<project>.coefficient=... urgency.uda.<name>.coefficient=... 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. See the original RFC-31 for complete details at: http://tasktools.org/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=rfc.git;a=blob_plain;f=rfc31-urgency.txt;hb=HEAD

SHADOW FILE¶

shadow.file=$HOME/.task/shadow.txt

If specified, designates a file path that will be automatically written to by taskwarrior, whenever the task database changes. In other words, it is automatically kept up to date. The shadow.command configuration variable is used to determine which report is written to the shadow file. There is no color used in the shadow file. This feature can be useful in maintaining a current file for use by programs like GeekTool, Conky or Samurize.

shadow.command=list

This is the command that is run to maintain the shadow file, determined by the shadow.file configuration variable. The format is identical to that of default.command . Please see the corresponding documentation for that command.

shadow.notify=on

When this value is set to "on", taskwarrior will display a message whenever the shadow file is updated by some task command.

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.priority=M

Provides a default priority 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. 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:

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.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+

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.

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. See the annotations variable for details on the possible values. Deprecated.

report.X.limit

An optional value to a report limiting the number of displayed tasks in the generated report. Deprecated.

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

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

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

Example 'estimate' UDA

This example shows an 'estimate' UDA that stores specific values for the size of a task.

SYNC¶

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

taskd.server=<host>:<port>

taskd.credentials=<organization>/<user>/<key>

taskd.certificate=<path>

taskd.key=<path>

taskd.ca=<path>

taskd.trust=yes|no

taskd.ciphers=NORMAL

Override of the cipher selection. The set of ciphers used by TLS may be controlled by both server and client. There must be some overlap between client and server supported ciphers, or communication cannot occur. Default is "NORMAL". See GnuTLS documentation for full details.

CREDITS & COPYRIGHTS¶

Copyright (C) 2006 - 2014 P. Beckingham, F. Hernandez. This man page was originally written by Federico Hernandez. Taskwarrior is distributed under the MIT license. See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php for more information.

SEE ALSO¶

task(1), tasksh(1), task-tutorial(5), task-faq(5), task-color(5), task-sync(5) For more information regarding taskwarrior, see the following:

The official site at

<http://taskwarrior.org>

The official code repository at

<git://tasktools.org/task.git/>

You can contact the project by emailing

<support@taskwarrior.org>

REPORTING BUGS¶

Bugs in taskwarrior may be reported to the issue-tracker at

<http://taskwarrior.org>