File & storage format

btw keeps each task as its own markdown file. Status is encoded by which subdirectory the file lives in: open/ or closed/. The data directory is plain enough that cat, grep, rg, and vim work directly without going through the binary.

Data directory

Default: $XDG_DATA_HOME/worktask/, falling back to ~/.local/share/worktask/. Override with the tasks_dir key in the config file (see Configuration).

<tasks_dir>/
  open/
    2026-04-29T11-30_abcdef12_buy-milk.md
  closed/
    2026-04-15T09-12_12345678_old-thing.md

Filename

<created-ts>_<id>_<slug>.md.

• created-ts is filesystem-safe ISO: YYYY-MM-DDTHH-MM, with the time component’s colons replaced by hyphens.
• id is an 8-character lowercase hex string from crypto/rand.
• slug is generated from the description at creation and frozen. update never renames the file.

File format

YAML frontmatter followed by a free markdown body:

---
id: abcdef12
created: 2026-04-29T11:30:00Z
---
buy milk
remember the brand

The first body line is the canonical description and is the target of update. Everything below it is freeform — append adds to the body, preserving everything above.

completed: is added to the frontmatter when a task is closed and removed when it is reopened. Open tasks have no completed field.