Show HN: Tascli, a command line based (human) task and record manager

Posted by Aperocky 3 days ago

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`cargo install tascli`

Manages your own task and records in the terminal simply with tascli - tiny, fast and simple.

Comments

Comment by PaulRobinson 3 days ago

Feels like a project covering some of the same ground as task warrior [0], which I've used on and off over the years. The main thing I've appreciated is integration with various tools - I had access in both vimwiki and the macOS task bar for a while which was nice - but all these tools miss the key thing that stops me using them all the time: integration with tools on my phone. It's great having cli access to tasks and in other places, but without ubiquity, given the way I work, it might well just be another place that ideas of tasks I need to do go to die.

[0] https://taskwarrior.org

Comment by Aperocky 3 days ago

The biggest difference is that tascli supports records natively - you can use it to just record stuff. This is one of the main reason why I created it - I didn’t just want tasks, but also when I have anything notable to jot down.

Other than that, I try to keep tascli as simple as possible so it can stay small and concise. Putting `tascli list task today` in zshrc is really nice to have a reminder everytime I open a new terminal tab.

Comment by riedel 2 days ago

I tried to use task warrior, however, a) I need a way to creat task quickly when I think about them (I guess I am being a bit on the attention deficit spectrum) b) I need a way to integrate a bit with time boxing on my work calendar . The problem is that the task warrior android or mobile eb apps app on mobile are really a bit of a UX nightmare compared to the cli interface. And while the plugin landscape of task warrior is broad, support for typical work settings is not really great out of the box. In the end all 'solutions' only seem to be a road towards meta-procrastination, instead of getting things done...

Comment by euroderf 2 days ago

Has't someone made a simple runtime environment for CLI apps for iOS and Android ? With a file picker GUI and not much else GUI ?

Comment by gh02t 3 days ago

Taskwarrior has a phone app on iOS and Android, and can sync with the cli one if you set up a sync server. They also revamped the sync server not long ago to be less janky than the old one.

Comment by fenaer 3 days ago

Looks great but a configurable date format to support the European standards of dd/MM/yyy would turn it into something I could actualy use

Comment by Aperocky 3 days ago

It does support YYYY/mm/dd which is the international standard.

Curious - in Europe, do you do dd/mm/YYYY or dd.mm.YYYY? The latter should be straightforward to support, but former would conflict with mm/dd/YYYY that's already included.

Comment by vladvasiliu 3 days ago

There is no such thing as “Europe” for these purposes, so it depends.

In France we do dd/mm/yyyy. Others do dots.

Comment by porridgeraisin 2 days ago

In india we dd/mm/yyyy too

Comment by modin 3 days ago

Does it handle both recurring events and recurrence?

E.g. move the lawn every other week vs pay rent on the 17th every month. If I go a week overdue on rent I still need to pay the next on the 17th. If I go a week overdue on the lawn I don't need to mow again for two weeks, not one.

Comment by Aperocky 3 days ago

For recurring tasks, the tool tracks the current interval and don't attempt to verify past intervals. Similar to past due single time tasks, they won't show unless you query specifically.

One of the reason is complexity, the other is that I'd rather have this tool be helpful whenever invoked, vs. forcing users to remember to update yet another tool.

Comment by gcr 3 days ago

Also check out org-mode, which is emacs' own journaling and organization system!

Comment by globalnode 3 days ago

What I dont like about computer todo or task lists is that they kind of describe you pretty well to prying eyes. As a privacy enthusiast im not that keen on having that info get out, especially with recall and possibly multiple other ai agents running around in the background looking through my stuff. I dont know what the solution to this is and Im not sure Linux will be free from this either in the future. Perhaps a disconnected linux box purely for todo lists that i manually ssh into to get access to? (but that would then be connected, hmm... perhaps through a physical firewall intermediary?)

Comment by ravenical 3 days ago

This argument also seems to apply to every other form of data about yourself. Once someone has access to your computer, I think the battle of preventing them from finding out about you is kinda over?

Comment by Aperocky 3 days ago

It is local, the program use a sqlite db locally and does not talk to internet whatsoever.

In that it's not necessarily different than writing your todolist on a notebook - someone other than you could have got hold of that and read it - say if it's on a shared shelve.

Comment by vladvasiliu 3 days ago

I think GP isn’t complaining specifically about this program, but about others which may hang around and access this data. Notice that recall is specifically mentioned. I think the issue is more with the general lack of separation between applications’ data.

Comment by derrida 3 days ago

if you're ultra paranoid and want a private OS to read / write - tails and set up a home directory on a thumbdrive

Comment by globalnode 3 days ago

Thats pretty much the only option. Doesnt need to be tails either, just a simple linux with no networking.