Taskfile-Help

A dynamic Taskfile help generator that parses Taskfile YAML files and outputs organized, colored help text similar to task --list, but with automatic grouping, namespace, and search support.

Features

• Group Organization: Automatic task grouping using comment markers
• Namespace Support: Organize tasks across multiple Taskfiles
• Smart Search: Search across namespaces, groups, task names, and descriptions with multi-pattern AND logic
• Multi-Pattern Search: Filter tasks with multiple patterns and regexes (all must match)
• JSON Output: Export task information in JSON format
• Colored Output: Automatic color support with TTY detection
• Internal Tasks: Hide implementation details with internal: true
• Fast: Simple line-by-line parsing without full YAML overhead

What is a Group?

In lieu of a task tag, a group is a set of tasks organized under a group comment marker. Group comments follow a known pattern like the default pattern: # === <group name> === and all tasks following the comment belong to that group until the next group comment or end of file.

Links:

• Taskfile.dev
• Documentation
• GitHub Repository
• Issue Tracker

Installation

Installs from PyPI using pipx:

pipx install taskfile-help

Integration with Taskfiles

Designed to be called from Taskfile help tasks. Here's how to integrate it into your workflow:

Basic Setup

Add a help task to your main Taskfile:

version: '3'

tasks:
  # === Main Tasks ===
  build:
    desc: Build the project
    cmds: [...]

  # === Help ===
  help:
    desc: Show available tasks from this Taskfile
    cmd: taskfile-help main
    silent: true  # Suppress task command echo

Now you can run:

task help       # Show available tasks from your main Taskfile nicely grouped and formatted

Multi-Taskfile Setup

The real advantage comes when you have multiple Taskfiles with namespaces.

Start by adding a wildcard help task (help:*): to your main Taskfile:

version: '3'

tasks:
  # ... main tasks ...

  # === Help ===
  help:
    desc: Show available tasks from a namespace (defaults to main)
    summary: Displays tasks from the given namespace (defaults to main)
    cmd: taskfile-help namespace {{.CLI_ARGS}}
    silent: true  # Suppress task command echo

  help:*:
    desc: Show available tasks for "all" or the given namespace or for "?" list available namespaces
    summary: |
      Displays tasks for "all" or the given namespace or list available namespaces if "?" is specified
      help:<namespace>    - Displays tasks from the given namespace
      help:all            - Displays tasks from all Taskfiles
      help:?              - Lists available namespaces
    vars:
      NAMESPACE: '{{index .MATCH 0}}'
    cmd: taskfile-help namespace {{.NAMESPACE}}
    silent: true  # Suppress task command echo

Now you can run:

task help       # Main tasks only
task help:all   # All tasks from all namespaces (Main + Dev + ...)
task help:<namespace>   # Tasks from the given namespace
task help -- <namespace> <namespace> ...   # Tasks from the given namespace(s)
task help:"<namespace> <namespace> ..."   # Tasks from the given namespace(s)
task help:?     # List all namespaces (Dev, Test, ...)

Search Integration

You can also add a search wrapper task for convenient searching:

  # === Search ===
  search:
    desc: Search for tasks
    summary: Search for tasks in all Taskfiles
    cmd: taskfile-help search {{.CLI_ARGS}}
    silent: true  # Suppress task command echo

  search:*:
    desc: Search for tasks
    summary: Search for tasks in all Taskfiles
    vars:
      PATTERN: '{{index .MATCH 0}}'
    cmd: taskfile-help search {{.PATTERN}}
    silent: true  # Suppress task command echo

Now you can search using the task command:

task search:python              # Search for "python"
task search -- python           # Search for "python"
task search:"version minor"     # Search for both "version" AND "minor"
task search -- version minor   # Search for "test" AND "minor"
task search -- --regex "m\S+or"     # Search for "minor", "major", "import", "mdformat"
task search -- --regex "m.*or" --regex "b\S+p"   # Search for "minor" or "major" AND "bump"
task search -- --regex "m.*or" bump   # Search for "minor" or "major" AND "bump"
task search:"bump --regex m\S+or"  # Search for "bump" AND "minor" or "major"

Example Output

Usage

Namespace Command

Display tasks from a specific namespace or all namespaces:

# Show help for main Taskfile
taskfile-help namespace
taskfile-help namespace main

# Show help for a specific namespace
taskfile-help namespace dev
taskfile-help namespace rag

# Show help for all Taskfiles
taskfile-help namespace all

# List available namespaces
taskfile-help namespace ?

# With global options (can appear after subcommand)
taskfile-help namespace dev --no-color --verbose
taskfile-help namespace all --json
taskfile-help namespace --search-dirs /path/to/project

Search Command

Search for tasks across namespaces, groups, task names, and descriptions:

# Search by single pattern (case-insensitive substring)
taskfile-help search test
taskfile-help search build

# Search with multiple patterns (AND logic - all must match)
taskfile-help search version bump
taskfile-help search minor version
taskfile-help search test coverage

# Search with regex filter
taskfile-help search --regex "^test"
taskfile-help search --regex ".*fix$"

# Search with multiple regexes (AND logic - all must match)
taskfile-help search --regex "test" --regex "unit"

# Combine patterns and regexes (all must match)
taskfile-help search version --regex "bump"
taskfile-help search test unit --regex "coverage"

# With global options
taskfile-help search build --no-color
taskfile-help search deploy --regex "^deploy" --json --verbose

Search Behavior

• Pattern matching: Case-insensitive substring search
• Regex matching: Full regular expression support
• Multiple patterns: All patterns must match (AND logic)
• Multiple regexes: All regexes must match (AND logic)
• Combined matching: All patterns AND all regexes must match somewhere in the task's combined text
• Search scope: Searches across namespace names, group names, task names, AND descriptions
• At least one filter required: Must provide at least one pattern or regex
• Results: Shows tasks where all search criteria match in any combination of fields

Global Options

Global options can be placed before or after any subcommand:

• --no-color - Disable colored output
• -s, --search-dirs DIRS - Colon-separated list of directories to search for taskfiles
• -v, --verbose - Show verbose output including search directories
• --json - Output tasks in JSON format
• --completion SHELL - Generate completion script for specified shell (bash, zsh, fish, tcsh, ksh)
• --install-completion [SHELL] - Install completion script (auto-detects shell if not specified)
• -h, --help - Show help message

Examples:

# Global options before subcommand
taskfile-help --no-color namespace dev
taskfile-help --json search test
taskfile-help -v --search-dirs /path namespace all

# Global options after subcommand
taskfile-help namespace dev --no-color
taskfile-help search test --json
taskfile-help namespace all -v --search-dirs /path

# Mixed positions
taskfile-help --json namespace dev --verbose

Shell Completion

taskfile-help supports tab completion for namespaces, task names, and command-line flags in multiple shells.

Quick Install

# Auto-detect shell and install
taskfile-help --install-completion

# Or specify shell explicitly
taskfile-help --install-completion bash

What Gets Completed

• Namespaces: taskfile-help <TAB> shows all available namespaces
• Task names: taskfile-help test:<TAB> shows tasks in the test namespace
• Flags: taskfile-help --<TAB> shows all command-line options

Completions are dynamic and automatically update when you add or remove Taskfiles.

For detailed installation instructions and troubleshooting, see the Shell Completion Documentation.

Configuration

taskfile-help supports multiple configuration methods with a clear priority order.

Configuration Files

taskfile-help supports two configuration file formats:

1. taskfile_help.yml - Dedicated YAML configuration file (takes precedence)
2. pyproject.toml - Python project configuration file (fallback)

If both files exist, taskfile_help.yml takes precedence.

Configuration Matrix

Priority Order: Command-line > Environment Variables > Config File (taskfile_help.yml or pyproject.toml) > Defaults

Configuration Examples

# Using command-line arguments
taskfile-help --no-color --search-dirs /path/to/project

# Using environment variables
export TASKFILE_HELP_SEARCH_DIRS=.:../shared
export NO_COLOR=1
taskfile-help

# Using .env file
cat > .env << EOF
TASKFILE_HELP_SEARCH_DIRS=.:../shared
NO_COLOR=1
EOF
taskfile-help

# Using taskfile_help.yml (recommended)
cat > taskfile_help.yml << EOF
search-dirs:
  - "."
  - "../shared"
no-color: false
group-pattern: "\\\\s*#\\\\s*===\\\\s*(.+?)\\\\s*==="
EOF
taskfile-help

# Using pyproject.toml (alternative)
[tool.taskfile-help]
search-dirs = [".", "../shared"]
no-color = true
group-pattern = "\\\\s*##\\\\s*(.+?)\\\\s*##"

For detailed configuration options, see the Configuration Documentation.

File Naming Conventions

Main Taskfile

Supported names (matches regex [Tt]askfile\.ya?ml):

• Taskfile.yml, Taskfile.yaml (preferred)
• taskfile.yml, taskfile.yaml

Namespace Taskfiles

Namespaces are defined in the includes: section of the main Taskfile:

version: '3'

includes:
  git:
    taskfile: ./taskfiles/Taskfile-git.yml
    dir: .
  version:
    taskfile: ./taskfiles/Taskfile-version.yml
    dir: .

Nested Includes: Included taskfiles can themselves have includes, creating hierarchical namespaces:

# Main Taskfile.yml
includes:
  foo:
    taskfile: ./foo/Taskfile.yml
    dir: .

# foo/Taskfile.yml
includes:
  bar:
    taskfile: ../bar/Taskfile.yml
    dir: .

# bar/Taskfile.yml
tasks:
  charlie:
    desc: A task in the bar namespace

This creates the namespace foo:bar with task foo:bar:charlie. Paths are resolved relative to each taskfile's directory, and circular references are automatically detected and prevented.

Note: Namespaces must be explicitly defined in the main Taskfile's includes: section. taskfile-help does not automatically discover namespace taskfiles based on filename patterns.

Taskfile Discovery

• By default, searches for taskfiles in the current working directory
• Use --search-dirs (or -s) to search in one or more directories (first match wins)
• Paths can be absolute (/path/to/dir) or relative (../dir, ./subdir)
• Relative paths are resolved from the current working directory
• Taskfiles can be located anywhere in the search path(s)

Task Organization

Tasks are automatically grouped using comment markers in the Taskfile:

# === Group Name ===
task-name:
  desc: Task description
  cmds: [...]

task2-name:
  desc: Task2 description
  cmds: [...]

# === Group2 Name ===

Example groups: "Service Management", "Testing", "Build and Release"

The output preserves the order of groups and tasks as they appear in the file.

Task Visibility

• Public tasks: Have a 'desc' field and no 'internal: true' flag
• Internal tasks: Marked with 'internal: true' (excluded from help)
• Tasks without descriptions are excluded from help output

Taskfile Validation

taskfile-help automatically validates Taskfiles to ensure they conform to Task version 3 specification. Validation runs on every parse and produces helpful warnings for issues, but processing continues (non-fatal).

What is Validated

• Version field: Must exist and equal '3' (string, not number)
• Tasks section: Must exist and be a dictionary
• Task structure: Each task must be a dictionary
• Field types: Validates types for common fields:
  • desc: must be a string
  • internal: must be a boolean
  • cmds: must be a list or string
  • deps: must be a list

Example Warnings

$ taskfile-help
Warning: Invalid version '2', expected '3'
Warning: Task 'build': 'desc' must be a string, got int
Warning: Task 'test': 'internal' must be a boolean, got str

# Tasks are still shown despite warnings
MAIN Task Commands:

Build:
  task build            - 123

Validation Behavior

• Always enabled: No opt-in flag required
• Non-fatal: Warnings are displayed but processing continues
• Helpful: Clear messages explain what's wrong and where
• Fast: Minimal performance impact (~1-2ms per file)

All warnings are written to stderr, so they won't interfere with JSON output or piped commands.

Output Behavior

• Colors enabled: When output is to a terminal (TTY) and --no-color is not specified
• Colors disabled: When output is piped, redirected, captured, or --no-color is used
• Matches the behavior of 'task --list'