tali-cli 0.3.0

tali • The CLI magic for task alchemists • Weave productivity spells with symbols that conjures order from chaos.

tali 🧙‍♂️

The CLI magic 🔮 for task alchemists -- Weave productivity spells with symbols that conjure order 📓 from chaos 🌀.

tali is a magical command-line task manager. It manipulates tasks with intuitive symbols for fast yet powerful filtering, grouping, sorting and batch operations.

Contents

• 🔝 Top
• ✨ Features
• 📦 Installation
• 📖 Usage Examples
  • 🪄 Basic Usage
  • 🔎 Filtering & Querying
  • ✏️ Task Modifications
  • ⏰ Deadline Management
  • 📒 Batch Operations
  • 🧪 Advanced Options
  • 📝 Editor Usage
• ⚙️ Configuration
• 📜 Symbol Cheat Sheet
• 🚀 Productivity Tips
  • 📟 Shell Aliases
  • 🎨 Syntax Highlighting
• 🧙‍♂️ Contribute
• 💡 Inspired by

✨ Features

• 🚀 Fast Symbolic Syntax -- Intuitive symbols for fast task filtering and editing: @tag, /project, ^1week.
• 🔎 Powerful Filtering, Grouping and Sorting -- Filter, group and sort items with ease: tali /work ! ^today @ =^.
• 📒 Batch Operations -- Modify multiple filtered tasks at once: tali /grocery @fruit . ,d marks tasks with tag @fruit in /grocery project as done.
• 😄 Emoji Support -- Use Emoji markups for visual flair: 💥 = :boom:.
• ⏪ Undo/Redo -- Never fear accidental changes with -u/--undo and -r/--redo.
• ⚙️ Highly Customizable -- Configure symbols, aliases, rendering format/style, editor, pager, database location, and more in ~/.config/tali/config.toml.
• 📁 Folder-specific Task Management -- Organize tasks in specific directories by creating a .tali folder in any directory.
• 📇 JSON Storage/Export -- Machine-readable output with -j/--json.
• 📜 Cheat Sheet Built-in -- Always available with -c/--cheatsheet.
• 1️⃣ Idempotent Operations -- Use interactive editor or scripts to modify tasks.

📦 Installation

• Using pip

  pip install tali-cli
  

• Using uv

  uv tool install tali-cli
  

• From source

  git clone https://github.com/admk/tali && cd tali && pip install .
  

• Requires Python 3.10+.

📖 Usage Examples

🪄 Basic Usage

tali . "Buy milk" /grocery ^today  # Create a task with project and deadline
tali . "Meeting notes" /work ^"tue 4pm" ,n  # Create a note
tali . "Fix bug" /tali !high @urgent  # Create high-priority task with tag
tali 42 . ,  # Toggle completion for task 42
tali 42 . ,x  # Delete task
tali ^today . @star  # Toggle star tag for all tasks due today

🔎 Filtering & Querying

tali /work !high ^today  # Show high-priority work tasks due today
tali /work + /home  # Show tasks in /work or /home
tali '(/work + /home) @urgent'  # Show urgent tasks in /work or /home
tali /work ~@waiting  # Show /work tasks without the @waiting tag
tali ^fri  # Select tasks that are due by Friday
tali @ =^  # Group tasks by tag sorted by deadline
tali 42 ?^  # Query deadline of task 42

✏️ Task Modifications

tali 42 . ,done  # Mark task 42 as done ☑️
tali 42 . ,  # Toggle task status
tali 42 . @star  # Toggle star tag ⭐
tali 42 . @fav  # Toggle favorite tag ❤️
tali 42 . !h  # Set high priority ‼️
tali 42 . ,x  # Delete task 🗑️
tali 42 . : "Details..."  # Add description
tali 42 . "New title" /newproject ,n  # Edit multiple properties

⏰ Deadline Management

tali 42 . ^+3d  # Postpone deadline by 3 days
tali 42 . ^2mon  # Set to Monday after next
tali 42 . ^M  # Set to end of month
tali 42 . ^oo  # Remove deadline

📒 Batch Operations

tali 1..5 . ,x  # Delete tasks 1-5
tali @urgent . !high  # Set all @urgent tasks to high priority
tali /home .  # Edit all tasks in /home project in text editor

🧪 Advanced Options

tali (-d|--debug) <...>  # Debug mode
tali (-j|--json) <...>  # Output in JSON format
tali (-H|--history)  # Show commit history
tali (-u|--undo)  # Undo last operation; repeat, e.g. -uu, to undo more
tali (-r|--redo)  # Redo last undone operation; repeat, e.g. -rr, to redo more
tali (-R|--re-index)  # Re-index database

📝 Editor Usage

You can invoke an interactive editor by running:

tali (-e|--edit)  # start an empty editor for task editing
tali <selection> .  # or edit tasks filtered by <selection>

In the editor, you can write task editing or adding commands without the tali prefix. When you save and close the editor:

• Each line will be treated as a separate command
• Commands will be executed sequentially
• Supports recursive prefix sharing for faster editing

Example:

. /home/grocery ^today buy
  @fruit
    apples
    oranges
  milk

This would be interpreted as:

. /home/grocery ^today @fruit buy apples
. /home/grocery ^today @fruit buy oranges
. /home/grocery ^today buy milk

To add nested tasks without knowing the parent's ID, start each nested child line with .:

. /work release checklist
  . draft outline
  . collect screenshots
    . crop hero image

Indented lines without a leading . still use prefix sharing. This also works inside nested blocks:

. /work
  release checklist
    @urgent
      . draft outline
      . collect screenshots

For multi-line descriptions in editor mode, use indented : lines under the task:

. /work release checklist
  : First description line.
  : Second description line.

For longer descriptions, use a fenced block. The fence defaults to """ and can be changed with token.description_fence:

. /work release checklist : """
First description line.
Second description line.
"""

⚙️ Configuration

Global configuration is stored in ~/.config/tali/config.yaml (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/tali/config.yaml). It also uses .tali/config.yaml in your project directory for project-specific setting overrides if it exists. Edit with:

tali --edit-rc

See config.yaml for all default configurations. See Configuration Guide for details of how to customize tali.

📜 Symbol Cheat Sheet

Token	Name	Description	Example
.	separator	Separates selection from action	1..3 . ,done
..	id range	Range of item IDs	1..5
,	status	Task status (see values below)	,pending
/	project	Project category	/work
@	tag	Custom tag	@critical
!	priority	Priority level (see values below)	!high
^	deadline	Due date/time expression	^tomorrow
=	sort	Sort results	=! (priority)
?	query	Query attributes	?^ (deadline)
:	description	Long description	: details...
+	or	OR between selection clauses	/work + /home
~	not	Negate the next selection filter	~@waiting
(	group open	Opens a selection expression	(/work + /home
)	group close	Closes a selection expression	/home) @tag
-	stdin	Read from standard input	-

Settable token values:

• Status accepts pending, done, note, archive, and delete. Default aliases are p, d/c, n, a, and x. A bare , action toggles pending/done.
• Priority accepts high, normal, and low. Default aliases are h, n, and l. A bare ! action sets high priority; !+ raises priority and !- lowers it.
• Deadline accepts date expressions such as today, tomorrow, feb21, 10am, mon, +3d, -1w, and +M1d. Quote values with spaces, for example ^"tue 4pm". In actions, ^oo clears the deadline.
• Selection adjacency is AND, a standalone + is OR, and ~ negates the next selection filter. Parentheses group selection expressions; through a shell, quote or escape them, for example '(/work + /home) @urgent'. These defaults are configured with token.or, token.not, token.open_paren, and token.close_paren.

🚀 Productivity Tips

📟 Shell Aliases

Use t as an alias for tali. For example:

1. Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

   alias t='tali'
   

2. source ~/.bashrc or source ~/.zshrc to apply the changes.
3. Use t <...> instead of tali <...> for extra speed.

🎨 Syntax Highlighting

• Use tali.vim for Neovim/Vim syntax highlighting. Install with lazy.nvim:

  {
    "admk/tali.nvim",
    ft = "tali",
  }
  

• Color theme: Catppuccin Mocha
  Screenshot

  

🧙‍♂️ Contribute

• ❓ Need Help? FAQs
• 🔮 Report bugs: Issue Tracker
• 📥 Submit PRs: Pull Requests
• 💬 Discuss: Discussions

💡 Inspired by

• taskbook: Tasks, boards & notes for the command-line habitat.
• taskwarrior: A command line task list management utility.