later-cli

A CLI task management tool. It is a simple program for managing tasks from the command line.

• 日本語はこちら

Installation

Requires Python 3.10 or later.

Install from PyPI

You can install later-cli using pip:

pip install later-cli

Then you can run the later command in your terminal.

Install from GitHub Repository

Use the package manager uv for setup. Running the commands below automatically creates a virtual environment (.venv) and syncs dependencies. First, install uv:

# Install uv
pip install uv
# OR
# brew install uv
# cargo install --git https://github.com/astral-sh/uv uv

And then, clone the repository and set up the environment:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/kujirahand/later-cli.git
cd later-cli

# Install dependencies and set up the environment
uv sync

Quick Start

A short tutorial is available below.

• English guide
• Japanese guide

Basic usage:

# Adds a task for 3 days later at 8:00 AM
later add 3d "Submit report"  
# Check tasks
later list
# Mark the first task as done
later done 1
# Delete all completed tasks
later clear --target=done
# Check the task list again
later list
# Delete the first task
later delete 1

Setup to Check Tasks at Shell Startup

For macOS/Linux

After cloning this repository, add the script directory to your PATH. Then you can run later args... from anywhere. The wrapper script later automatically runs via uv run when .venv exists.

It is convenient to add the following settings to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:

LATER_CLI_PATH="/path/to/later-cli"  # replace with your later-cli path
PATH="$LATER_CLI_PATH:$PATH"
# Check due tasks at startup
later check

For Windows

When using Windows PowerShell, open ~\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 (the value of $PROFILE) in a text editor and add the following lines. If the file or folder does not exist, create it first.

cd /path/to/later-cli  # replace with your later-cli path
uv run later check

How to Use later-cli

Please type later --help to see the available commands and options.

Configuration Customization

You can change values in tasks.json with the set command.

# Customize date display format
later set datetime_format "%Y/%m/%d %H:%M"

Date Display Format Customization (datetime_format)

By default, notification timestamps in the task list (later list) omit the year and are displayed in a format like MM/DD(weekday) HH:MM (e.g., 03/01Wed03:33). If you want to change the display format, use later set datetime_format (format) to set your preferred format string.

You can use Python's strftime format specifiers.

Format Example	Display Example
%Y/%m/%d %H:%M	2026/06/01 10:30
%d/%m %H:%M	01/06 10:30 (European style)
%b %d, %Y %I:%M %p	Jun 01, 2026 10:30 AM (US style)
%m/%d(%a) %H:%M	06/01(Mon) 10:30 (Japanese style)

Date Input Format Customization (datetime_in_format)

You can also customize the date input format when adding or editing tasks. By default, formats like MM/DD HH are supported, but you can change this by setting a custom format string to the datetime_in_format key.

# Change the date input format
later set datetime_in_format "%Y.%m.%d %H:%M"

For the format string, use Python's strptime format specifiers. For example, if you set %Y.%m.%d %H:%M, you can enter dates like 2026.06.01 10:30 when adding or editing tasks.

Format Example	Input Example
%Y.%m.%d %H:%M	2026.06.01 10:30
%d/%m %H:%M	01/06 10:30 (European style)
%b %d, %Y %I:%M %p	Jun 01, 2026 10:30 AM (US style)
%m/%d(%a) %H:%M	06/01(Mon) 10:30 (Japanese style)

Date-Only Input Format Customization (date_in_format)

Likewise, by setting a custom format for the date_in_format key, you can customize the format used to input date-only values when adding or editing tasks. By default, formats like MM/DD are supported.

# Change the date-only input format (MM.DD)
later set date_in_format "%m.%d"

If the input is date-only and contains no time information, the notification time is automatically set to the app default: 08:00:00 (8:00 AM). Also, when the year is omitted, the current year (or next year if that date has already passed) is automatically complemented.

Format Example	Input Example	Stored Notification Datetime (when run in 2026)
%Y.%m.%d	2026.07.15	2026-07-15 08:00:00
%d/%m	15/06 (European style)	2026-06-15 08:00:00
%m/%d	06/15 (Japanese style)	2026-06-15 08:00:00

Deadline Renewal and Direct Date Input (renew command)

The later renew command supports not only extending deadlines by relative offsets, but also updating a deadline by directly specifying a date or datetime.

# Extend task 1 by 7 days (relative offset)
later renew 1 "7d"

# Change task 1 deadline directly to 6/1 08:00:00 (direct date input)
later renew 1 "6/1"

When specifying a date directly, you can also use the custom formats configured above for datetime_in_format and date_in_format.

More Detailed Guide

The following Mynavi series introduces the program and basic usage:

• https://news.mynavi.jp/techplus/article/zeropython-138/

GitHub Repository

• GitHub > later-cli
• PyPI > later-cli