| name | tag-strategy |
| description | Help the user design and maintain a useful OmniFocus tag taxonomy. Use when the user asks about tags, contexts, organizing by tag, or wants to clean up or rationalize existing tags.
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Tags in OmniFocus are most useful when each tag means one specific thing. Common axes — pick the ones that match how the user actually decides what to work on:
- Context / location —
@home, @office, @errands, @phone, @computer.
- Energy —
Deep Work, Low Energy, Quick Wins.
- Tool —
iPad, Terminal, Editor, Browser.
- Person —
Waiting: Sara, 1:1 with Boss, @Family.
- Time of day —
Morning, Evening. Use sparingly; defer dates often work better.
- Status —
Waiting, Someday.
Mutually exclusive tag groups (4.7+)
OmniFocus 4.7+ supports childrenAreMutuallyExclusive on parent tags — only one child can apply at a time. Good for axes where overlapping values don't make sense:
- Energy levels (
Deep Work vs Low Energy).
- Time of day (
Morning vs Evening).
- Effort estimate buckets (
<5min, 15min, 1hr+).
When creating or updating a parent tag, set childrenAreMutuallyExclusive: true via omnifocus_create_tag or omnifocus_update_tag.
Workflow when the user wants to clean up tags:
omnifocus_list_tags to see what exists.- Look for redundancy (
Phone vs Calls), one-off tags, and misuse (tag-as-project).
- Use
omnifocus_list_untagged to find available tasks that lack tags — these often need context to be findable.
- To merge or rename,
omnifocus_update_tag for renames; for merges, retag affected tasks via omnifocus_update_tasks_batch then omnifocus_delete_tag.
Avoid:
- More than ~20 active tags. Tag fatigue makes the system worse, not better.
- Tags that duplicate folder/project structure ("Project: Foo").
- Adding
childrenAreMutuallyExclusive retroactively to a populated parent without warning the user — existing tasks may lose tags silently.
