tamd - tasks and markdown

A command-line task manager that stores tasks as markdown files and supports powerful filtering with a query language.

Features

• Per-project isolation: Each project has its own TASKS/ directory, similar to .git - no global directories are used. This allows you to version‑control TASKS/ alongside your code.
• Task storage: Tasks stored as TASK.md files in timestamped directories (YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS/TASK.md) in TASKS/ directory. The task directory can also contain any additional files related to the task — attachments, screenshots, logs, scripts, etc. Everything stays organized in one place.

Usage Example

Start from scratch in a new project:

# Create a project directory and enter it
mkdir myproject
cd myproject

# Initialize TASKS directory (like git init)
tamd -i
# Output: Created tasks directory: /home/user/myproject/TASKS

Once the TASKS/ directory is initialized, you can work with tasks from any subdirectory within the project — just like Git, tamd automatically finds the nearest TASKS/ directory by walking up the file tree.

# Create your first task
tamd -n

The task will be created with the following content:

- NAME:
- PRIORITY:
- TAGS:
- STATUS:

You can fill it out as needed, for example:

- NAME: Fix login bug
- PRIORITY: 10
- TAGS: bug, critical, auth
- STATUS: opened

The login page returns 500 error when using special characters.
...

When you have many tasks, you'll want to filter them:

# List all tasks
tamd -p 'all'

# Find critical bugs
tamd -p 'tag = bug and priority > 5'

# Delete low priority tasks
tamd -r 'priority < 5'

# Filter by task name (exact match)
tamd -p 'name = login'

# Filter by task name (substring)
tamd -p 'name ~ login'
tamd -p 'name ~ "fix login"' # multiple words - quotes required

# Filter by creation time
tamd -p 'time ~ 20260516' # Tasks created on 2026-05-16
tamd -p 'time > 20260516T12' # Tasks created after 2026-05-16 12:00:00
tamd -p 'time >= 2023 and time <= 2025' # Tasks created between 2023 and 2025 (inclusive)

# Find tasks with complex conditions
tamd -p '(tag = bug or tag = critical) and status = opened'
tamd -p 'not (priority < 3 or status = closed)'
tamd -p '(priority > 5 and tag = urgent) or status = reopened'

# You can also use operators with lists in square brackets to match multiple values:
tamd -p 'status = [opened, reopened]' # Status equals "opened" OR "reopened"
tamd -p 'tag !~ [fix, ref]' # None of the tags contain "fix" or "ref"
tamd -p 'priority = [10, 20, 30]' # Priority equals 10 OR 20 OR 30

Query Syntax

The query language supports filtering tasks using operators and keywords

Operators

Operator	Description
>	Greater than
<	Less than
>=	Greater than or equal
<=	Less than or equal
=	Equal / exact match
!=	Not equal
~	Substring match (contains)
!~	Not contains (substring absence)

Logical Operators

Operator	Description
and	Logical AND
or	Logical OR
not	Logical NOT

Types

Type	Description	Format	Examples
number	Integer value	0-999	0, 10, 999
string	Text value	Can be unquoted or quoted with " or '	bug, "fix login", 'critical'
timestamp	Creation time of task	4, 6 or 8 digits + optional (T + 0, 2, 4 or 6 digits)	2026, 20260516, 20260516T, 20260516T1230

Keywords

Keyword	Type	Operators	Example
priority	number	>, <, >=, <=, =, !=	priority > 5, priority != 10
tag	string	>, <, >=, <=, =, !=, ~, !~	tag = bug, tag ~ crit
status	string	>, <, >=, <=, =, !=, ~, !~	status = opened, status ~ open
name	string	>, <, >=, <=, =, !=, ~, !~	name = "Fix bug", name ~ login
time	timestamp	>, <, >=, <=, =, !=, ~, !~	time > 20260505T1230 and time < 20260510T
all	special	-	all

Note: all operators also work with lists in square brackets []. Lists are syntactic sugar for multiple or conditions. Examples:

• status = [opened, reopened] is equivalent to status = opened or status = reopened
• tag ~ [bug, crit] is equivalent to tag ~ bug or tag ~ crit

Installation

Clone the repository and build:

make

This will produce an executable file ./tamd.

Requirements

• Linux only (uses GNU extensions: get_current_dir_name, fmemopen)
• Build dependencies:
  • C compiler (gcc/clang)
  • make
  • flex
  • bison

Acknowledgments

Inspired by Compiler for a Query Language by Tsoding. In the video, he outlined the specification for such a system but didn't release the code - so this is my own implementation.