Vault Task Planner

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Requirements

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

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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+.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Status & contributing

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

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

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License

MIT