task

name	task
description	Use when starting a non-trivial new thread (worker dispatch, multi-file investigation, deferred follow-up), changing the status of in-flight work, or answering "what's open" / "what's in flight" / "any tasks tracking X" — operates on the SM v2 task store at ~/alice-mind/inner/tasks/ via the `task` CLI. Don't create a task for pure conversational replies. Don't bypass the CLI by hand-editing files.
metadata	{"scope":"both"}
trigger_keywords	["task","open work","in flight","todo","tracking","thread","lose track","what's open","status","tasks"]

task

The SM v2 task tracker. Records every non-trivial thread Alice is working on so nothing gets lost between Signal turns, dispatcher surfaces, and PR merges. Backed by ~/alice-mind/inner/tasks/ (per-task task.yaml + transitions.jsonl, plus an index.jsonl roll-up).

The state machine and full schema live in ~/alice-mind/inner/tasks/SCHEMA.md and cortex-memory/research/2026-05-11-idea-task-state-machine-v2.md. task --help (and per-subcommand --help) is the canonical source for invocation shape.

When to invoke

Create a task whenever a new thread is going to outlive the current turn. Specifically:

• A worker subagent dispatch (auto-fix or otherwise).
• A multi-file investigation Jason asked about that won't finish in this reply.
• A deferred follow-up ("look at X later" → log it now, work on it later).
• A design surfacing from thinking that Alice has decided to engage with.

Don't create a task for:

• A simple conversational reply with no side-effect.
• Logging a meal, workout, or weight (those have their own skills).
• Bookkeeping a memory note (use append_note for that).

Update an existing task when its status changes — worker spawned, PR opened, validation finished, blocked on Jason, etc.

Query tasks when Jason or thinking asks "what's open", "what's in flight", "any work tracking X", or anything similar. The default "open" filter excludes done/rejected.

Operations

The CLI ships at ~/alice-tools/bin/task (preferred path; check bin/task in the alice repo too) and exposes five subcommands:

task create --title TITLE [--tags T,T,...] [--actor speaking|thinking|jason]
            [--artifact-type research_note|code|experiment|config_change]
            [--source SRC] [--reason R]

task update <id> --status draft|selected|building|reviewing|blocked|validating|done|rejected
                 [--actor ACTOR] [--reason R] [--merge-ref REF]
                 [--validation-evidence E] [--unblocked-by U]

task list [--status STATE|open] [--tag TAG] [--actor ACTOR]
task view <id>
task close <id> [--reason R] [--merge-ref REF] [--actor ACTOR]

Add --json to any subcommand for machine-readable output.

State machine cheat-sheet

Happy path: draft → selected → building → reviewing → done (research/experiment) or draft → selected → building → reviewing → validating → done (code/config — CI gate). Auto-fix path uses the self-merge shortcut: building → done with --merge-ref <PR URL>.

blocked requires --unblocked-by describing what must change. validating → done requires --validation-evidence describing what was checked.

The full edge list is in ~/alice-mind/inner/tasks/SCHEMA.md. The CLI rejects invalid transitions with a clear error.

Read-back via Signal

Jason or thinking asking "what tasks are open" / "what's in flight" should trigger:

task list --status open

Then summarise the result back. Keep it terse — task-NNNN status title per line is enough unless he asks for detail.

Don't

• Don't hand-edit files under inner/tasks/ — the CLI keeps task.yaml, transitions.jsonl, and index.jsonl in sync via a file lock. Direct edits will drift.
• Don't create a task and immediately close it in the same turn just because it's done. If the thread doesn't outlive the turn, it doesn't need a task.
• Don't open a draft transition without a reason. The transitions log is the audit trail; an empty reason makes it useless.