Operon is live: a new task and project management system for Obsidian workflows
Hi everyone! I'm excited to finally share Operon.
This began in February with an ambitious little sentence in my notes: build the task and project management system I would want future humans and agents to use. After a planning phase, development started near the end of February. Close to 250 hours later, Operon has become my only task system after roughly 3,000 tasks.
The core idea is simple: I wanted something more capable than checkboxes, but I did not want my work to leave Markdown or pull me out of flow. Tasks show up across daily notes, project notes, meeting notes, references, and long-running areas, then need to be found, edited, scheduled, repeated, or tracked later.
Operon tries to bring those fragments into one local task system without turning them into a separate app.
Design notes
During the planning phase, I also benchmarked the parts of other task and productivity tools that felt genuinely useful instead of trying to rediscover every wheel from scratch.
I liked the fluid task creation ideas around Tasks and TaskNotes, the usefulness of a file body view for note-based tasks, the speed of clean timer tools like Timing, Toggl, and ClickUp, the planning feel of Notion and TickTick calendars, and the way ClickUp's swimlanes can make a Kanban board much more useful than a flat status board. The pinned task idea also came from that same ClickUp benchmark: small, focused, and surprisingly handy when you are actively working.
Dataview and QuickAdd also influenced the inline syntax: I liked how they make structured information feel natural inside Markdown, so Operon uses a compact {{key:: value}} pattern for task metadata.
The goal was not to clone those tools. It was to take the flows that already felt proven, then adapt them to Obsidian's strengths: Markdown files, links, local data, reusable views, and tasks that can live inside the notes where the work already has context.
The codebase itself is new. Operon was written from scratch around a new task engine built for this plugin, rather than wrapping an existing task system or trying to extend another plugin's data model.
The core idea
Operon is an Obsidian-native task management system that keeps tasks in Markdown while adding structured metadata, durable identity, reusable views, planning, recurrence, and time tracking. Tasks can also carry their own icon and color, so important work can stay visually recognizable across different views.
Every Operon task gets an operonId, so the same task can appear in notes, filters, Calendar, Kanban, the Task Editor, recurrence, pinned tasks, and time tracking without becoming duplicate work.
The same canonical task fields are reused across inline metadata, file-task frontmatter, the Task Editor, filters, Calendar, and Kanban, so a field keeps the same meaning wherever it appears.
Tasks can move through workflows without losing source, context, or history.
Inline and file tasks in one system
Operon supports both of Obsidian's natural task shapes: lightweight inline checkbox tasks inside existing notes, and larger file-based tasks that deserve their own Markdown note. Both share the same index, metadata model, Task Editor, filters, Calendar, Kanban boards, and time tracking.
You can convert between inline and file tasks when the work changes shape. A quick line can stay inside a planning note, while a bigger project or deliverable can become its own Markdown file with sections, references, subtasks, and decisions.
Inline task metadata lives in compact {{key:: value}} fields after the task text. There are many canonical keys under the hood, but the syntax stays simple: a normal checkbox line can carry identity, dates, status, priority, recurrence, or other metadata without becoming unreadable.
You do not have to choose one task format forever. The task can grow or shrink into the shape it needs.
Capture, editing, search, and filters
Tasks rarely arrive from one perfect inbox, so Operon has several creation and conversion paths. You can create or convert tasks from the command palette, current line, selected text, an existing checkbox, the main Task Creator, a file task, a Calendar slot, a Kanban cell, or an external calendar event.
The Task Editor gives a structured surface for status, priority, dates, tags, contexts, assignees, parent tasks, dependencies, recurrence, pinning, and time tracking. For file tasks, it keeps the Markdown body close so the task still behaves like a real note.
Task Finder is for the moment when you remember the work but not where you filed it. It searches across inline and file tasks by names, ids, notes, metadata, parent/child context, dates, and related links. Saved filters turn task rules into reusable work scopes for views, note embeds, side panels, Calendar presets, and Kanban presets.
Task management becomes less about remembering where something lives and more about naming the view of work you need right now.
Calendar planning, from task pool to time blocks
Operon's Calendar has two main planning modes: Time Grid for day-style time blocking, and Multi-Week for seeing a wider planning horizon.
Tasks can appear as all-day items, due items, timed blocks, finished work, or projected recurring occurrences depending on the view.
The Task Pool turns the Calendar sidebar into a planning inbox. It can show overdue, unscheduled, or open tasks, then let you drag them onto the Calendar as all-day or timed work.
Read-only external ICS calendars can sit beside local Operon tasks, so outside commitments can be visible without turning them into editable vault tasks.
Calendar scheduling updates the same underlying task record, so the task still keeps its metadata, source note, status, priority, icon, color, recurrence, and tracking history.
Kanban boards
Operon's Kanban boards are built from task metadata, not from a separate board database.
Columns come from pipeline statuses, so each board can follow the workflow that fits the work type.
Swimlanes can organize cards by priority, tags, contexts, assignees, due date, or scheduled date. This was one of the reasons I wanted Kanban in Operon: a flat status board is useful, but swimlanes make the same board much easier to scan.
Dragging cards updates the underlying task metadata, so Kanban, filters, Calendar, and the Task Editor stay aligned.
Kanban search narrows the board in place, using the same task-search engine behind Task Finder.
Recurrence
Operon recurrence can be schedule-based, completion-based, or count-based, with daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly patterns.
Recurring tasks create fresh occurrences with new task identity while carrying useful context forward. Completion state, tracked time, progress, and dependencies reset so each occurrence remains a real task of its own.
For recurring file tasks, Operon can create the next Markdown file, reset checkboxes, recreate owned inline subtasks with fresh ids, update date/week tokens, and apply property cleanup rules.
Projected recurring occurrences can appear in Calendar, and skipped dates can be managed from the repeat controls.
written from scratch around a new task engine
Repeated work stays connected to its original structure without becoming copy-paste maintenance.
Time tracking
Operon can start and stop timers from the task itself, then store completed sessions on the task record that explains the work.
TrackTime is the normal timer flow. FlowTime adds a focused countdown rhythm for sessions where I want a little more structure without using a strict Pomodoro model.
Time Session History lets you review, edit, remove, or restart previous sessions.
Parent tasks can roll up tracked duration from child tasks, so larger work can show the combined effort of its descendants.
Tracked effort stays attached to task history instead of living in a separate timer log.
Pinned work, contextual actions, and local data
The Pinned Task Dock is a small focused working set for tasks that should stay nearby while you work.
Contextual task actions can appear on pinned tasks, filter rows, Kanban cards, Calendar items, task pool entries, FlowTime tasks, and time history rows.
The available actions change by surface, so actions like open editor, jump to source, mark done, start timer, pin or unpin, change status, cancel, unschedule, or skip an occurrence show up where they make sense.
Operon stores settings and runtime data in the vault-level .operon folder. It has no telemetry, analytics, tracking pixels, or usage reporting.
External ICS support only reads configured calendar sources into Operon's local cache.
Your task system stays part of your vault, not a remote service.
Who Operon is for
Operon is probably most useful if your work already spans daily notes, project notes, meeting notes, long-running areas, recurring responsibilities, or agent-assisted workflows. It is for people who want more than plain checkboxes, but still want tasks to remain readable, editable, linkable Markdown.
I would love feedback from Obsidian users with complex task workflows, especially if you combine daily notes, projects, calendars, boards, recurring work, and time tracking.
I hope the text and screenshots give a useful first sense of how Operon works. I am also planning to share demo videos soon, because many parts of the plugin make more sense when you see the workflow in action.
Website: https://operon.cc/
Community plugin page: https://community.obsidian.md/plugins/operon
