org-queries

name	org-queries
description	How to query my personal org files.

For my personal TODO tracking, I use emacs org-mode. The files live in the ~/org directory. For ease of use, I have a script named org-query that hits my running emacs instance and produces structured json output for common queries.

All queries run against files defined in org-agenda-files.

Usage

org-query <command> [tags]

Commands

Command	Description
todos	All entries with any TODO state
active	Active entries (TODO, NEXT, REVIEW, DEPLOY)
next	Only NEXT entries
scheduled	Only entries with a SCHEDULED date
deadlines	Only entries with a DEADLINE date

Tag filtering

Optional second argument filters by tags:

org-query active work          # active items tagged :work:
org-query scheduled work,home  # scheduled items tagged :work: or :home:

Output

JSON array of entries:

[
  {
    "heading": "Write documentation",
    "state": "NEXT",
    "file": "/Users/me/org/projects.org",
    "line": 42,
    "tags": ["work", "docs"],
    "scheduled": "2026-02-01",
    "deadline": "2026-02-05"
  }
]

You can pipe the output to a program like jq to slice out specific bits of data.

If you are looking at work TODOs, always use the 'work' tag.