Repeat rules and time tracking

Slash commands

With the cursor on a task line:

Command	Does
/due	Pick a due date (text field + calendar)
/sched	Pick a scheduled date
/start	Pick a start date
/priority	Choose one of the five levels from a list
/repeat	Set a repeat rule — the only way to enter one, because its value contains spaces
/cancel-task	Mark the task cancelled, keeping the line

/extract-tasks (Extract Action Items) works anywhere, not just on a task line — see AI Features.

The date dialogs carry a three-layer calendar: click the centre label to widen from days to months to years, pick a cell to narrow back down. Typing in the text field returns you to the day view. Picking a month or a year only moves the view — only choosing a day sets the value.

Editing an existing task

Every field renders as a chip in the editor. Click a chip to edit that field, or clear it to remove the field. Cmd+Alt+T (Task input, remappable) opens the full dialog — Edit task on an existing task line, New task anywhere else. It shows every field, a tag box, and a live preview of the resulting line. Somewhere a task can’t go (a heading, a table, a code block) it closes itself.

If the line changed underneath you — another window, an external editor — the write is refused rather than overwriting, and the dialog tells you so.

Repeat rules

A 🔁 rule is written in English (so other tools read it the same) and must match this shape:

every [N] day|days|week|weeks|weekday|month|months|year|years [on <anchor>]

Example	Means
every day	daily
every 2 weeks	fortnightly
every weekday	next business day
every week on Monday	Mondays
every month on the 15th	the 15th of each month
every year	annually

Anchors only attach to their own unit: on Monday needs week, on the 15th needs month, and every weekday takes neither an interval nor an anchor.

Completing or cancelling a repeating task rolls it forward instead of closing it: the start/scheduled/due dates all move to the next occurrence, the state returns to [ ], and a toast shows the new date. The line stays a single line.

A rule that can’t do that says so on its chip:

• repeats … (no date to move) — the task has a 🔁 but no date to roll
• repeats … (not understood) — the rule doesn’t match the grammar above

Time tracking

Off by default. Turn on Settings > General > Tasks > Track time on tasks in progress and a task writes a ⏱ field while it sits in [/], banking the elapsed time when it leaves that state:

⏱1h27m                      stopped — an hour and 27 minutes so far
⏱1h27m+2026-09-01T14:03     running — counting again from that moment

It is off by default on purpose: switching a task to “in progress” would otherwise add a field to a file that other apps also read.