GTD Task Management

This guide covers task management in khive — the GTD lifecycle, priority levels, task dependencies, and common workflow patterns.

What tasks are

Tasks in khive are notes with kind=task, managed by the GTD pack. They have a status lifecycle, priority level, optional assignee, and can be linked to entities in the knowledge graph.

Tasks are created with gtd.assign, not create(kind="note"). The GTD pack handles lifecycle validation and status transitions.

Task lifecycle

inbox ──> next ──> active ──> done
  │         │        │
  │         │        └──> cancelled
  │         │
  └──> someday    waiting ◄──┐
         │                    │
         └────────────────────┘

Status meanings

Status	Meaning	When to use
`inbox`	Captured but not committed	Default. Something that needs triage.
`next`	Committed, ready to work on	After triage — this is actionable and prioritized.
`active`	Currently in progress	When you start working on it.
`done`	Completed	Finished successfully.
`cancelled`	Abandoned	No longer relevant.
`waiting`	Blocked on something external	Waiting for a response, a dependency, or a condition.
`someday`	Deferred indefinitely	Not urgent, not committed, but worth remembering.

Valid transitions

Not all transitions are valid. The GTD pack validates them:

inbox can go to: next, someday, cancelled
next can go to: active, waiting, someday, cancelled
active can go to: done, waiting, cancelled
waiting can go to: next, active, cancelled
someday can go to: next, cancelled

Idempotent transitions (same status to same status) are accepted silently.

Creating tasks

Basic task

request(ops="gtd.assign(title=\"Implement FlashAttention-3 in lattice\")")

Defaults: status=inbox, priority=p2.

Task with priority and status

request(ops="gtd.assign(title=\"Benchmark attention variants\", priority=\"p0\", status=\"next\")")

Task linked to an entity

request(ops="gtd.assign(title=\"Review FlashAttention paper\", context_entity_id=\"<entity_id>\")")

The context_entity_id links the task to a KG entity, making it discoverable via graph traversal.

Task with assignee

request(ops="gtd.assign(title=\"Write attention tests\", assignee=\"agent:platform\")")

Task with tags

request(ops="gtd.assign(title=\"Profile memory usage\", tags=[\"perf\", \"attention\"])")

Priority levels

Priority	Meaning
`p0`	Critical — do now, everything else waits
`p1`	High — do today
`p2`	Normal — do this cycle (default)
`p3`	Low — do when convenient

Working with tasks

Get next actions

request(ops="gtd.next(limit=5)")

Returns tasks with status in [next, active], sorted by priority (p0 first).

List tasks by status

request(ops="gtd.tasks(status=\"active\")")
request(ops="gtd.tasks(status=\"waiting\", assignee=\"agent:docs\")")

Transition a task

request(ops="gtd.transition(id=\"<task_id>\", status=\"active\", note=\"started implementation\")")

The note parameter records why the transition happened.

Complete a task

request(ops="gtd.transition(id=\"<task_id>\", status=\"done\")")

You can also use gtd.complete:

request(ops="gtd.complete(id=\"<task_id>\", result=\"all benchmarks pass\")")

Note: gtd.complete requires the task to be in active status. Use gtd.transition(status="done") if the task is in another status.

Task dependencies

Tasks can depend on other tasks using depends_on edges. The GTD pack extends the base edge contract to allow task-to-task depends_on relationships:

request(ops="gtd.assign(title=\"Write tests\", status=\"next\")")
# Get the task id from the response

request(ops="gtd.assign(title=\"Run CI\", depends_on=[\"<test_task_id>\"])")

Or link them explicitly:

request(ops="link(source_id=\"<ci_task_id>\", target_id=\"<test_task_id>\", relation=\"depends_on\")")

Workflow patterns

Daily review

request(ops="gtd.next(limit=10)")

Review actionable tasks, reprioritize, transition stale items to waiting or someday.

Triage inbox

request(ops="gtd.tasks(status=\"inbox\")")

For each inbox item, decide: promote to next, defer to someday, or cancel.

request(ops="gtd.transition(id=\"<task_id>\", status=\"next\", note=\"promoted after review\")")

Context switching

When picking up a new area of work, filter by assignee or tags:

request(ops="gtd.tasks(assignee=\"agent:docs\", status=\"next\")")

Batch status update

request(ops="[gtd.transition(id=\"<id1>\", status=\"done\"), gtd.transition(id=\"<id2>\", status=\"done\")]")