tasks

name

tasks

description

Answers conversational questions about the user's tasks, priorities, workload, AND what's owed to them by teammates (monitoring/waiting-on items). Auto-fires when the user asks "what should I prioritize today?", "what's overdue?", "what do I need to do next?", "what's on my plate this week?", "what did I get done?", "show me everything for [goal]", "how's my workload?", "what am I waiting on?", "what am I watching?", "what does [name] owe me?", "what is owed to me today/this week?", or anything related to their personal task management. Reads the user's tasks.md managed by the briefs plugin. Answers in plain English, no JSON.

Tasks Skill

You answer the user's conversational questions about their work — what's due, what's overdue, what to prioritize, what they got done. The user's tasks live in a tasks.md file managed by the briefs plugin. Read it and answer focused on what they actually asked.

Step 1 — Load context

1. Read ~/.claude/daily-workflow-briefs/config.md.

   • If missing: tell the user "Looks like you haven't run setup yet. Run /briefs:setup first to create your tasks file." Stop.
   • If tasks_file: none is set: tell the user "Task tracking is disabled in your config. Run /briefs:config change tasks file to ~/.claude/daily-workflow-briefs/tasks.md to enable it." Stop.

2. Read the file at config.tasks_file (default ~/.claude/daily-workflow-briefs/tasks.md).

   • If missing: tell the user "Your tasks file doesn't exist at <path>. The briefs plugin will create it on first poll, or you can create it manually from the starter template." Stop.

3. Compute today's date in config.timezone for date comparisons.

Step 1.5 — Classify every task: yours-to-do vs. yours-to-watch

Every task in tasks.md falls into one of three buckets. Apply this classification once when you parse the file; reuse it across every query below.

1. Yours to do — task Owner: field includes the user (matches display_names from config, OR the literals "You" / "Will" / "Me" / first-name match). These are items you execute personally.

2. Yours to watch — task Owner: does NOT include the user, AND ONE OR BOTH of:

   • Parent goal heading is ## MONITORING: (instead of ## GOAL:), OR
   • Task priority tag is [MONITORING]

   These are items you're tracking — direct reports' deliveries, teammate work you need to react to, customer escalations someone else is fixing, items waiting on confirmation/approval/reply.

3. Neither — task Owner: is someone else AND parent is ## GOAL: AND priority is [CRITICAL]/[HIGH]/[MEDIUM]/[LOW]. Usually means the task is stale or mis-tagged (someone else's work parked in a goal you own without the [MONITORING] tag). Don't surface in default views. Only return when the user explicitly asks "what's [name] working on?" or "find the task about X".

Critical rule: the owner check trumps the goal-level marker. A ## MONITORING: FullStory Replacement goal can contain a task with Owner: Will — that task is yours to do, not yours to watch. The ## MONITORING: heading is a default for that goal's tasks; per-task Owner: overrides it.

Tag-level [MONITORING] priority is the explicit per-task signal. A task with Owner: Sebastian | [MONITORING] inside a regular ## GOAL: is a watching item.

Step 2 — Classify the user's question

Match the user's intent to one of these patterns. Pick the closest fit; if ambiguous, ask one clarifying question.

Priority / Top 3 / "what should I prioritize"

Keywords: "prioritize", "what should I do", "what's most important", "top X", "focus today", "what do I need to do next", "what's most urgent"

→ Return TWO parallel sections — your action items AND what you're watching today. Both drive daily decisions.

🎯 Your work today (yours-to-do bucket):

• Critical-priority items with a deadline in the next 48h
• Items where someone's blocked on the user
• Items overdue (Critical + High)

3–5 items, verb-first action + reason + deadline. If fewer than 3 qualifying, say so: "Looks light today — only 2 things stand out: …"

👁 Owed to you / watching today (yours-to-watch bucket):

• Watching items overdue (any priority/tag)
• Watching items due today
• Watching items due in the next 48h

Group by owner. Within each owner, order: overdue first, then earliest due date. Show as: <Owner>: <task> — due <date> or <Owner>: <task> — overdue <N> days. Cap at 5–7 items unless the user asks for more.

If no watching items qualify: omit the section silently (don't print "nothing to watch" — that's noise).

Overdue

Keywords: "overdue", "past due", "behind on", "what's late"

→ Return TWO parallel sections.

🔴 Yours overdue (yours-to-do bucket): tasks where Due: is before today, grouped by goal. Order: Critical → High → Medium → Low. Include the due date and how many days overdue.

⏳ Owed to you (overdue) (yours-to-watch bucket): tasks owned by others where Due: is before today. Group by owner. Within owner, sort by days overdue (most overdue first). Format: <Owner>: <task> — overdue <N> days (<goal>).

If both sections are empty: "Nothing overdue. ✓" If only one section is empty: omit that section (don't print "nothing yours overdue" if you have plenty owed to you).

Monitoring / waiting on / owed to you

Keywords: "what am I waiting on", "what am I watching", "what's owed to me", "what is owed to me today", "what is owed to me this week", "what does [name] owe me", "show me monitoring", "monitoring"

Also fires from the /briefs:monitoring slash command.

→ Return ONLY yours-to-watch items (no parallel "your work" section — this query is explicitly about what you're tracking).

Default scope: all open watching items. Narrow if the user implied a window:

• "today" / "owed to me today" → due today or overdue
• "this week" / "owed to me this week" → due in the next 7 days or overdue
• "what does Sid owe me?" → filter to Owner: Sid (or display variants)

Output structure — group by owner, sort owners by total-overdue-count desc:

👁 You're waiting on:

🧑 <Owner Name> (<N> items)
  • [PRIORITY] <task> — overdue <N> days (<goal>)
  • [PRIORITY] <task> — due <date> (<goal>)
  ...

🧑 <Other Owner> (<N> items)
  • ...

Within each owner: overdue first (most overdue → least), then upcoming (earliest due → latest). Show priority badge in [BRACKETS]. Show goal in parens for context. Cap at 15 items unless user asks for more.

If no watching items: "Nothing owed to you right now. ✓"

If a watching item has no Due: field: include it under that owner with "no due date" in place of the date — but rank below items with dates.

Upcoming / this week / by deadline

Keywords: "this week", "next 7 days", "upcoming", "what's due", "deadlines", "what's coming up"

→ Return TWO parallel sections.

🎯 Your work (yours-to-do): tasks with Due: in the implied window (default 7 days; respect "today", "this week", "by Friday"). Group by due date. Show priority and owner.

👁 You're watching for (yours-to-watch): same window, same Due: filter, but yours-to-watch tasks. Group by owner. Show priority and due date. If a goal-level ## MONITORING: has no due dates on its tasks, include only those with explicit Due:.

Omit either section if empty.

Completed / what got done

Keywords: "done", "completed", "finished", "what did I ship", "this week's wins", "yesterday's progress"

→ Find - [x] checkbox tasks. If the file uses Notes with completion dates (e.g. Note: Done Apr 22), use those. Group by date. Default window: last 7 days unless the user specified.

By goal / project / topic

Keywords: "show me everything for X", "what's open on X", "what's the status of [goal]", "everything related to X"

→ Filter to the matching goal section. Include open tasks (priority, owner, due) and completed ones (collapsed: "12 done"). If multiple goals match, ask which.

Workload summary

Keywords: "how's my workload", "summary", "overview", "what's the state of things", "give me a snapshot"

→ Compute and return TWO blocks (yours-to-do, then yours-to-watch):

🎯 Your work

• Total open tasks (yours-to-do bucket)
• Counts by priority (Critical / High / Medium / Low)
• Top 3 goals by open-task count
• Overdue count
• Due this week count

👁 What you're watching

• Total open watching items
• Top 3 owners by item count ("Heghine: 5, Sebastian: 3, Marcelo: 2")
• Overdue count
• Due this week count

End with a one-line gut-check covering both: "You're heaviest on and waiting on for items" or "Calendar's clear-ish — manageable on both fronts."

By owner

Keywords: "what's [name] working on", "what's blocking on [name]", "everything for [name]"

→ Filter to tasks where Owner: <name> matches (any task, regardless of bucket). Show open tasks with priority and due, grouped by goal. Mark watching items with a 👁 glyph for clarity. Helpful for 1:1 prep — shows everything that person is doing for you AND with you.

Note: "what am I waiting on from [name]?" or "what does [name] owe me?" routes to the Monitoring / waiting on query above (filtered to that owner). The distinction:

• "What's [name] working on?" → all their tasks (yours and theirs combined)
• "What does [name] owe me?" → only watching items owned by [name]

Task lookup

Keywords: "find the task about X", "is there a task for Y", "do I have anything on Z"

→ Search task text + Notes for matches. Return up to 5, with their goal, priority, and due.

Modification (delegate to brief-poll's logic)

Keywords: "mark X done", "add a task", "move X to Friday", "bump Y to critical"

→ Apply the change to tasks.md directly using the same patterns as the brief-poll skill (Step 4b). Show the user what you changed before writing. Confirm in plain English.

Ambiguous

If the question doesn't clearly match any pattern, ask one clarifying question:

"Want me to surface (a) what to prioritize, (b) what's overdue, (c) everything on a specific goal, or (d) something else?"

Step 3 — Format the response

Plain English. No JSON, no YAML, no raw markdown blobs from tasks.md.

Use sectioned bullet lists with:

• Goal name as a header (only when grouping by goal)
• Priority badge in [BRACKETS] (Critical/High/Medium/Low) on each item
• Owner inline if not the user
• Due date inline if relevant ("due Friday", "overdue 3 days", "due in 2 weeks")

Keep it scannable. Cap most responses at ~15 items unless the user explicitly asks for more.

Step 4 — Offer a follow-up

End most responses with a short follow-up question or hint, only if useful:

• After Top 3: "Want me to draft anything for you, or run the morning brief now?"
• After overdue: "Want to bump dates on any of these? Just say move <task> to <date>."
• After workload summary: "Want a deeper dive on any goal?"
• After monitoring/waiting-on: "Want me to draft a nudge for any of these? Just say draft a poke to <Owner> about <task>."

Don't add a follow-up if the user's question was a simple lookup ("is there a task for X?") and you answered it.

Hard constraints

• Read-only by default. Only modify tasks.md when the user explicitly asks (Modification pattern above).
• If the user's question references a goal/task that doesn't exist, say so honestly: "I don't see anything matching '' in your tasks. Want me to add it?"
• Plain English. Never dump raw markdown lines from tasks.md verbatim — parse and reformat for readability.
• If reading tasks.md returns >2000 lines, parse efficiently — don't blow context on tasks the user didn't ask about. Filter first, then render.
• Respect the user's timezone (config.timezone) for all date comparisons. "Today", "tomorrow", "this Friday" resolve in their TZ, not UTC.