taskrc(5) User Manuals taskrc(5)
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:
$HOME/.taskrc
The default location can be overridden using the rc: attribute when running task:
$ task rc:<directory-path>/.taskrc ...
or usign the TASKRC environment variable:
$ TASKRC=/tmp/.taskrc task ...
Individual options can be overridden by using the rc.<name>: attribute when running task:
$ task rc.<name>:<value> ...
or
$ 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 taskwarrior configuration file consists of a series of assignments in each line. The assignments have the syntax:
<name-of-configuration-variable>=<value-to-be-set>
where:
<name-of-configuration-variable>
is one of the variables described below
<value-to-be-set>
is the value the variable is to be set to.
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.
Note that taskwarrior is flexible about the values used to represent Boolean items. You can use "on", "yes", "y", "1" and "true". Any-
thing 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:
$ task config nag "You have higher priority 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 /usr/share/task/holidays.en-US.rc
include /usr/share/task/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 environmant variables override defaults and command line arguments.
TASKDATA=~/.task
The overrides the default path for the taskwarrior data files.
TASKRC=~/.taskrc
The 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, is interpreted as infinite
width, therefore with no word-wrapping; 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, is interpreted as infinite
height. 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=vi
Specifies which text editor you wish to use for when the task edit <ID> command is used. Taskwarrior will first look for this con-
figuration variable. If found, it is used. Otherwise it will look for the $VISUAL or $EDITOR environment variables, before it
defaults to using "vi".
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'.
locale=en-US.UTF8
Locale to be used by Taskwarrior for synchronization with the task server. The default value is currently blank.
MISCELLANEOUS
verbose=on|off|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 minimal output.
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
Note that the "on" setting is equivalent to all the tokens being specified, and the "off" setting is equivalent to none of the
tokens being specified.
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 "no", 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 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 higher priority 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 pri-
ority. Default value is: You have higher priority tasks. It is a gentle reminder that you are contradicting your own priority set-
tings.
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 '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".
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 sen-
sitive way. Defaults to yes.
regex=off
Controls whether regular expression support is enabled. The default value is off, because this advanced feature could cause confu-
sion 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:
$ task list > file
will not use any color. To override this, use:
$ task rc._forcecolor=yes list > file
shell.prompt=task>
The task shell command uses this value as a prompt. You can change it to any string you like.
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 "ver-
sion", 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 informa-
tion is displayed in a developer-friendly, not a user-friendly way.
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=m/d/Y
dateformat.report=m/d/Y
dateformat.holiday=YMD
dateformat.annotation=m/d/Y
report.X.dateformat=m/d/Y
This is a string of characters that define how taskwarrior formats date values. The precedence order for the configuration variable
is report.X.dateformat then dateformat.report then dateformat. While report.X.dateformat only formats the due date in reports,
dateformat.report formats the due date both in reports and "task info". If both of these are not set then dateformat will be
applied to the due date. Entered dates as well as all other displayed dates in reports are formatted according to dateformat.
The default value is: m/d/Y. The string should 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
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
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 weeknumber, for example 03 or 37
H two-digit hour, for example 03 or 11
N two-digit minutes, for example 05 or 42
S two-digit seconds, for example 07 or 47
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 do an output as "Fri 24 Jul 2009 (30)"
A, B D, Y would do an output as "Friday, July 24, 2009"
vV a Y-M-D would do an output as "v30 Fri 2009-07-24"
yMD.HN would do an output as "110124.2342"
m/d/Y H:N would do an output as "1/24/2011 10:42"
a D b Y H:N:S would do and output as "Mon 24 Jan 2011 11:19:42"
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 date 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:
holiday.towel.name=Day of the towel
holiday.towel.date=20100525
holiday.sysadmin.name=System Administrator Appreciation Day
holiday.sysadmin.date=20100730
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), Ascen-
sion (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 /usr/share/task/holidays.en-US.rc
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 com-
mand:
task color
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.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.pri.H Task has priority H.
color.pri.M Task has priority M.
color.pri.L Task has priority L.
color.pri.none Task has no priority.
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=
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.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
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.
color.sync.added=green
color.sync.changed=yellow
color.sync.rejected=red
Colors the output of the merge command.
rule.precedence.color=due.today,active,blocked,overdue,due,keyword,project,tag,recurring,pri,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 values (color.tag.XXX) is shortened to 'tag', which places all specific tag rules at the same prece-
dence, 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.next.coefficient=15.0
Urgency coefficients for 'next' special tag
urgency.blocking.coefficient=8.0
Urgency coefficients for blocking tasks
urgency.blocked.coefficient=-5.0
Urgency coefficients for blocked tasks
urgency.due.coefficient=12.0
Urgency coefficients for due dates
urgency.priority.coefficient=6.0
Urgency coefficients for priorities
urgency.waiting.coefficient=-3.0
Urgency coefficients for waiting status
urgency.active.coefficient=4.0
Urgency coefficients for active tasks
urgency.project.coefficient=1.0
Urgency coefficients for projects
urgency.tags.coefficient=1.0
Urgency coefficients for tags
urgency.annotations.coefficient=1.0
Urgency coefficients for annotations
urgency.age.coefficient=2.0
Urgency coefficients 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.project.<project>.coefficient=...
Specific project 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.
PUSH/PULL/MERGE
See the 'man task-synch' page for more details regarding usage.
merge.autopush=yes|no|ask
Determines post-merge behavior regarding automatic push.
merge.default.uri
Default merge URI.
pull.default.uri
Default pull URI.
push.default.uri
Default push URI.
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.
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
The columns that will be used when generating the report X. Valid columns are: id, uuid, status, project, priority, priority_long,
entry, start, end, due, countdown, countdown_compact, age, age_compact, active, tags, depends, description_only, description, recur,
recurrence_indicator, tag_indicator and wait. The IDs are separated by commas.
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-,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 date-
format 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 in its default
configuration file. These reports are:
next Lists the most important tasks.
long Lists all task, 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
List all tasks that have dependencies.
CREDITS &; COPYRIGHTS
Copyright (C) 2006 - 2012 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), 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>
task 2.0.0 2012-03-17 taskrc(5)