taskwright 2026.3

A local, file-backed productivity app for program/task tracking.

Taskwright

A local-first, file-backed productivity web app for managing tasks. Everything lives in plain files on your disk — no database, no account, no cloud. Point Taskwright at a folder and it serves a browser UI for dashboards, a Gantt timeline, a Kanban board, a calendar, notes, attachments, and an editable task side panel.

Documentation: a full guide is in the docs/ folder and is set up to build on Read the Docs (Sphinx + Markdown).

Why Taskwright

• File-backed source of truth. Each task is a single JSON file you can read, diff, and commit to git. The whole workspace is a folder you own.
• Local-first. Runs entirely on 127.0.0.1. Your data never leaves your machine.
• Git-aware. The UI shows branch/ahead/behind/dirty status and has a one-click commit + pull + push sync button when the workspace folder itself is a git repo.

Workspace layout

The source of truth is a workspace folder:

workspace/
  config.json           # editable workspace/app metadata
  projects/
    apollo.json         # one file per project
  tasks/
    A1B2-C3D4-E5F6-7890.json  # one file per task (native id format)
  milestones/
    M-1A2B-3C4D.json    # one file per milestone (groups tasks across projects)
  assets/
    A1B2-C3D4-E5F6-7890/  # attachments live alongside their task id
      screenshot.png

The app provides a browser UI for viewing dashboards, timelines, task boards, notes, attachments, and editing tasks through a side panel.

Install locally

From a clone of this repository:

pip install -e .

This installs the taskwright command. (A PyPI release will come later; for now install from source.)

Quick start

taskwright serve --workspace ./my-workboard

If the workspace folder does not exist yet, taskwright serve will create the empty Taskwright structure for you. You can also run it from the current directory and let Taskwright use . as the workspace.

Then open:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

init is available if you want to scaffold a folder explicitly. It creates an editable config.json, empty projects/, tasks/, milestones/, and assets/ directories, plus a README stub. It does not create starter projects or tasks; use the app to add your own once you begin.

Serve an existing workspace

taskwright serve --workspace ./path/to/workspace --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000

Flag	Default	Description
--workspace	.	Workspace folder to serve
--host	127.0.0.1	Host interface to bind
--port	8000	Port to listen on
--reload	off	Enable uvicorn auto-reload (development)

Task file example

{
  "id": "A1B2-C3D4-E5F6-7890",
  "title": "CAF refinement prototype",
  "status": "working",
  "priority": "high",
  "project": "Apollo",
  "summary": "Build a prototype CAF refinement workflow.",
  "description": "Compare baseline CAF sharpness against protection-aware refinement.",
  "tags": ["caf", "signal-processing", "prototype"],
  "start_date": "2026-06-24",
  "due_date": "2026-06-30",
  "completed_date": null,
  "percent_complete": 60,
  "depends_on": ["0EBB-528F-371E-61AE"],
  "checklist": [
    {"text": "Generate baseline CAF", "done": true},
    {"text": "Export comparison plots", "done": false}
  ],
  "notes": [
    {
      "created_at": "2026-06-26T10:30:00",
      "body": "Protection-aware version improved sharpness."
    }
  ],
  "attachments": []
}

depends_on stores task ids. In the UI you add dependencies with a search-as-you-type picker that finds tasks by name and shows their status, project, due date, and id — then stores the id. Dependencies are reflected on the Gantt timeline (an ↳ after <name> label plus a marker where the dependency's bar ends).

Milestones

Milestones are a separate entity from projects. A milestone can span multiple projects, holds an ordered list of tasks (which can come from any project, and a task can belong to any number of milestones), and has its own description, notes, and attachments — just like a task.

• Open the Milestones view to see every milestone with a live rollup (task count, progress, target date).
• Click a milestone to filter the whole board to just its tasks and show a rollup banner; the side panel opens the milestone for editing.
• Each milestone has its own colour used on milestone cards and the rollup banner.
• From inside a milestone you can add a task with one search-as-you-type picker and use the sticky + New task button at the bottom of the list for quick creation (auto-added to that milestone), and remove tasks.

Milestones are stored one JSON file per milestone under milestones/.

Features

• JSON-per-task source model you can version with git
• Dashboard summary cards (total / done / working / blocked)
• Kanban-style board with per-project color strips
• Gantt timeline with dependency markers
• Calendar view
• Milestones that group tasks across projects, with per-milestone colour, click-to-filter rollup, and their own notes/attachments/description
• Click any task (row, card, timeline bar, calendar entry) to open an editable side panel
• Save edits back to the JSON file; raw JSON editor escape hatch
• Notes list and attachment/image uploads
• Searchable "depends on" picker that resolves names to task ids
• Project management with custom colors, each stored in its own JSON file
• Filtering by project, milestone, date range, and free-text search; sortable views
• CSV / JSON export
• Built-in git status chip and one-click sync (commit + pull + push)

Building the docs locally

pip install -e ".[docs]"
sphinx-build -b html docs docs/_build/html

Open docs/_build/html/index.html. On Read the Docs the build is driven by .readthedocs.yaml.

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
ruff check .

License

MIT