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Obsidian Tasks

by Mike Jarrett

Obsidian Tasks checkboxes from a local vault, in the Omarchy bar.

GitHub

Security review

No obvious issues detected

Deterministic scan — not a security guarantee

None
Risk level
None
Analyzed commit
94f6eaf
Scanned
1 month ago

No potentially dangerous behavior detected in the analyzed commit.

Automated analysis only — not a security guarantee.

AI advisory review

No obvious issues detected

Language-model assessment · ~deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-latest — advisory only

None
AI risk level
None
Recommendation
install
Model
~deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-latest
Analyzed commit
94f6eaf
Reviewed
1 month ago

This is a local-only Obsidian task widget: the QML panel invokes a Python helper that scans and edits markdown in a user-configured vault. The sampled code is transparent, avoids shell-string command execution, uses careful file handling such as O_NOFOLLOW and atomic writes, and performs no network or install-time side effects. The deterministic scan found nothing, and no notable danger was found beyond the intended writes to the user's chosen vault.

How this check works

This review combines the deterministic scan (the rule-based results above) with an independent look at the plugin's code by a language model. The model reads a trimmed sample of the repository's files, the manifest, and the README, then gives a plain-language risk level and a recommendation: install (no notable danger), review (look closer first), or avoid (clearly dangerous).

It runs on the same analyzed commit as the deterministic scan and is strictly advisory — it is not a security guarantee and never blocks a plugin by itself. A human moderator still reviews plugins before they are listed.

AI advisory only — automated analysis, not a security guarantee.

Install
$ omarchy plugin add https://github.com/m1kode/obsidian-tasks --enable
Productivity #bar #quickshell

Tasks

Obsidian Tasks checkboxes in the Omarchy bar: an icon that lights while something is open, and a popup to work through them.

<img src="preview.png" alt="The popup listing open tasks with due badges" width="380">

How it's meant to be used

The vault is the only state — no database, no account, no cache:

  • Capture anywhere, tick off here. Add tasks on your phone in Obsidian or TaskForge; they reach the bar as soon as sync lands them.
  • Tasks live next to their context. Obsidian Tasks is built for a - [ ] line written wherever you are — a meeting note, a project page, a daily note. The widget scans everything under the folder you point it at, so there's no need to herd them into one file.
  • This is a view, not the system of record. Obsidian, a phone app and a text editor are equally valid ways to change a task. Nothing here owns the data.

Install

omarchy plugin add https://github.com/m1kode/obsidian-tasks.git --enable
omarchy bar put m1kode.obsidian-tasks --section center

Requires rg and python3, both standard on Omarchy.

To remove it:

omarchy plugin remove m1kode.obsidian-tasks

That takes the widget out of the bar and deletes the plugin. Your notes are untouched — the plugin only ever reads and writes markdown in the folder you point it at, and removing it leaves every task exactly where it is.

First run

You have to tell it where your tasks are before it reads anything. The popup opens with a path field and no tasks, pre-filled with the vault Obsidian has open — read from its registry (~/.config/obsidian/obsidian.json, or the Flatpak and Snap equivalents), not by searching your filesystem. That's a suggestion, nothing more.

Enter accepts it, or type your own. Closing the popup discards it and stores nothing; only saving makes the widget read the folder. Point it at a whole vault or one folder inside it — whatever you give it is the scan root, and tasks outside it won't appear.

The field then moves behind the ⚙ gear in the popup's top right, to change folder any time.

<img src="preview-vault.png" alt="The vault path field revealed by the gear" width="380">

Or set it from the shell and skip the prompt:

omarchy bar set m1kode.obsidian-tasks vaultPath /path/to/your/vault

Changing any setting needs omarchy restart shell to take effect.

Format

Both Obsidian Tasks syntaxes, whichever your vault is set to under Task Format — emoji signifiers or Dataview inline fields:

- [ ] Renew car insurance 📅 2026-08-30
- [ ] Renew car insurance [due:: 2026-08-30]

Due dates and priorities are read and sorted on in either; every other signifier is preserved untouched, so an edit can't quietly drop metadata this widget doesn't read. Ticking a task rewrites its line in place and stamps the completion date the way your vault writes it — ✅ 2026-08-30, or [completion:: 2026-08-30].

Dates

A trailing date phrase in the add box becomes a due date and leaves the task text:

pay rent friday        →  - [ ] pay rent 📅 2026-08-28
review pr in 3 days    →  - [ ] review pr 📅 2026-08-29
call bank 2026-09-01   →  - [ ] call bank 📅 2026-09-01

Understood: today, tomorrow, next week, a weekday name, in N days, in N weeks, YYYY-MM-DD. Naming today's weekday means the next one. Renaming a task parses dates the same way — that's how you change an existing due date. English only: steuern morgen keeps its text; YYYY-MM-DD works anywhere.

Two rules stop it rewriting what a task says: only trailing phrases count (friday night drinks keeps its wording), and short weekday forms need an on or next (photograph the sun keeps its last word, retro on weds gets a date). The phrase is removed whole, so a preposition leading into it stays behind — some new tasks for today becomes some new tasks for, dated today.

Sync

Nothing here touches a network. The widget reads and writes files in a folder; keeping that folder current is someone else's job, and Obsidian Sync, Syncthing, git and Dropbox all do it.

Because sync can rewrite a file at any moment, writes match on the exact line text, never a line number — if the line moved since the scan that drew the row, the write is a no-op rather than a guess.

The vault is rescanned every 60s and whenever the popup opens, so a task added on a phone surfaces within a minute.

Settings

From the widget's entry in ~/.config/omarchy/shell.json:

Key Default What it does
vaultPath (auto) Folder scanned for checkboxes; empty means ask Obsidian
inboxFile Inbox.md Where new tasks are appended, relative to the vault
countMode all all lights the icon for any open task; due only for today or earlier
refreshIntervalSec 60 Rescan interval

.obsidian, .trash, .git and Templates are always skipped — a daily-note template full of - [ ] placeholders would otherwise inflate the count with phantom tasks that appear in no note you can find.

Keys

j/k move, Enter ticks or unticks, e edits the task under the cursor, a jumps to the add box, r rescans, Esc closes.

How it works

Panel.qml decides what to show; bin/obsidian-tasks does every read and write, with complete, uncomplete and rename sharing one line-rewrite primitive. The panel passes the vault to the commands that write metadata, so the helper reads the format from the vault's settings rather than guessing it from a path.