obsidian-tasks

What This Skill Does

The obsidian-tasks skill provides a robust, standardized framework for managing complex workflows directly within your Obsidian vault. By bridging the gap between the Kanban plugin (for visual workflow management) and Dataview (for automated task reporting), this skill ensures your project management remains structured and queryable. It enforces a strict YAML frontmatter schema to ensure that your metadata—such as priority, status, and due dates—is always machine-readable. This allows you to scale from simple to-do lists to complex, multi-project dashboards that track revenue, research, and general administrative tasks simultaneously.

Installation

To integrate this skill into your workflow, ensure you have the Kanban and Dataview community plugins installed in your Obsidian vault. Use the OpenClaw command line to add the skill to your agent's repertoire: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/larsderidder/openclaw-obsidian-tasks

Once installed, navigate to your vault via the terminal and execute the setup script: python3 scripts/setup.py <vault-path> --folder Tasks This initializes your board and dashboard files, readying your vault for automated task synchronization.

Use Cases

This skill is perfect for users who want to treat their personal knowledge base as a primary workspace. Ideal scenarios include:

• Project Management: Track multi-stage project milestones with linked research documents and meeting notes.
• Content Pipeline: Manage a content calendar, moving drafts through statuses like 'Research', 'Drafting', 'Review', and 'Done'.
• Personal Productivity: Use the Dataview dashboard to isolate P1 (urgent) tasks to avoid burnout and track overdue items to ensure accountability.

Example Prompts

• "OpenClaw, setup a new task board in my Obsidian vault located at ~/Documents/MyVault called 'Projects'."
• "I have a new urgent task related to revenue. Help me write the frontmatter and update the Board.md file for 'Client Proposal Review' with a due date of next Friday."
• "Show me all P1 tasks in my Tasks folder that are not yet marked as 'done' and sort them by due date."

Tips & Limitations

• Synchronization is Key: Always remember that this skill relies on the user or the agent manually updating both the Board.md and the source Markdown file. Discrepancies can occur if the frontmatter status deviates from the Kanban column location.
• Referencing: Leverage the References section to link supporting documents; this makes your task files 'hubs' for your wider research ecosystem.
• Limitations: This skill requires the Obsidian Kanban plugin for the visual board component; without it, the visual tracking features will not render correctly within Obsidian.