The Open Task Format (OTF) is a human-readable format for representing task lists.
OTF has a few simple goals:
- Files should be human readable and writable
- Support common, basic features of all services, but complex features may be omitted to ensure import/export between all services
- Moving between services should be a simple export/import task
Check out the otf-utils respository for a work-in-progess set of utilities.
Lists or projects are collections of tasks. The list format is simple, since only the name of the list is supported in OTF.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The name of the list. Some services include an Inbox, which is treated as a normal list by OTF. Importers may select these lists by name as needed. |
Lists are represented in OTF files by wrapping the list name with equals (=) characters. Here's an example:
= House Repairs =
An OTF file with three empty lists would appear as follows:
= Groceries =
= House Repairs =
= Birthday Gifts =
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The main content of an individual work item |
| Due Date | An ISO 8601 date indicating when the task is due |
| Completion | Denotes whether or not the task has been completed |
| Star | Designates important or high priority tasks |
Tasks are represented on a single line in OTF, making their information density very high. Each line leads with a set of brackets ([ and ]) with a space or X to indicate if the task is complete. A star ★ (Unicode U+2605) will follow the brackets for starred tasks. The task name follows, and is proceeded by an optional due date field, contained in another set of brackets.
= Groceries =
[ ] Milk
[X] Cheese
[ ] ★ Coffee
TODO...
= List =
[ ] Incomplete item
[X] Completed item
= Another List =
[ ] Something [2014-01-01]
[ ] Do thing
[ ] ★ Starred item
[ ] Something repeats every seven days [2014-01-01,r7d]