Taskdn

Documentation & Getting Started

A task-management system for individuals that stores data as markdown files (with YAML frontmatter) on disk while providing beautiful, purpose-built interfaces for actually managing your tasks. Tasks can be read and manipulated via text editors (Obsidian, VSCode), command line tools, and AI coding assistants.

The core idea: provide the right user interface in the right context.

Tool	Description	Directory	Status
Specs	Formal specifications for the protocol	tdn-specs/	✅ Stable
CLI	Command-line interface for humans and AI agents	tdn-cli/	✅ Stable
Claude Plugin	Claude Code plugin for AI-assisted task management	tdn-claude-plugin/	✅ Stable
Desktop App	Cross-platform Tauri app for day-to-day use	tdn-desktop/	⌛ In Progress
Obsidian Plugin	Render task wikilinks as interactive widgets	obsidian-taskdn	✅ Stable
Starter Vault	Pre-configured Obsidian vault with templates/bases	tdn-obsidian-starter-vault	✅ Stable
Website	Documentation and marketing site	website/	✅ Stable

Documentation

• Project Overview & Philosophy – Why this project exists, design decisions. Read first.
• The Core Specification – Formal spec for task/project/area file formats.

Installation

CLI Installation

brew tap dannysmith/taproom
brew install tdn

See tdn-cli/README.md for more options and usage.

Claude Plugin Installation

The Claude Code plugin teaches Claude to work as a productivity assistant, using the tdn CLI to help manage tasks.

Install from marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add dannysmith/taskdn
/plugin install tdn@tdn-marketplace

Or load locally during development:

claude --plugin-dir ./tdn-claude-plugin

Obsidian Plugin Installation

The Obsidian plugin renders wikilinks to task files as interactive checklist widgets. Click to toggle status, open files, or navigate to projects/areas.

See tdn-obsidian-plugin/README.md for installation instructions.

Project Structure

This is a monorepo. Each tdn-* directory is a self-contained project with its own documentation, tests, build configuration etc.

taskdn/
├── demo-vault/          # Sample vault for testing
├── docs/                # Project-wide documentation
│   ├── archive/         # Old docs for reference
│   ├── product-overviews/
│   │   ├── cli/         # CLI requirements & tech docs
│   │   └── desktop/     # Desktop app requirements & tech docs
│   ├── tasks-done/      # Completed development tasks
│   └── tasks-todo/      # Active development tasks
├── tdn-cli/             # CLI tool (TypeScript/Bun + Rust)
├── tdn-claude-plugin/   # Claude Code plugin
├── tdn-desktop/         # Desktop app (Tauri v2)
├── tdn-obsidian-plugin/ # Stub with README.md pointing at obsidian-taskdn repo
├── tdn-specs/           # Protocol specifications
└── website/             # Documentation & marketing site (Astro/Starlight)

Development

Work which cuts across multiple products can happen in the top-level directory - this will usually be the case for early work on new products. Work which is tightly scoped to an individual product should happen in the project's own sub-directory. Each of these is set up to be an entirely independent project and each has its own README with setup instructions.

Monorepo Scripts

Run these from the repository root with bun <script>:

Script	Description
versions	Show local vs published versions for all products
monorepo:check	Run lint, typecheck, and tests across all products
cli:install-local	Install the CLI locally via symlink (for development)
demo:reset	Reset the dummy test vault to a clean state
demo:import-to-things	Import demo vault tasks into Things.app
task:complete	Move a completed dev task to tasks-done
task:rename-done	Add dates to existing completed task files

See docs/developer/releases-and-versioning.md for release processes.