Obsidian Tasks

Set up and manage an Obsidian task board with Kanban + Dataview. Creates a Tasks/Board.md pipeline (Backlog/Todo/In Progress/Review/Done), per-task notes with YAML frontmatter (status/priority/category/due), and dashboards via Dataview queries. Use for task tracking, moving cards between columns, keeping board + frontmatter in sync, and linking tasks to supporting notes/research.

Security Scan

The skill is internally consistent with its stated purpose: it creates Markdown board/dashboard files in a user-specified Obsidian vault and has no hidden network endpoints, secret requirements, or unexpected privileges.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description (Obsidian task board with Kanban + Dataview) matches the included scripts and SKILL.md. The code only creates Board.md and Dashboard.md and writes per-task files in the specified vault folder; nothing requested is out-of-scope (no cloud creds, no unrelated binaries).

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md instructions stay within the stated purpose: run scripts to create files in an Obsidian vault, install the Kanban and Dataview community plugins, and manually keep frontmatter and board lines in sync. The instructions do not ask the agent to read unrelated system files or transmit data externally.

Install Mechanism

There is no install spec for the skill (instruction-only at runtime). The included scripts are local and simple; they create files on disk. The publish helper uses npx to call clawhub for maintainers only — that operation downloads a package when run, but it is not part of normal runtime behavior for the skill.

Credentials

The skill requires no environment variables, credentials, or config paths. All file writes are to a user-supplied vault path. No secrets or unrelated env vars are requested.

Persistence & Privilege

The skill is not forced always-on, and it does not modify other skills or system-wide settings. Its only persistence is creating/overwriting Board.md and Dashboard.md in the chosen vault folder (it checks for existing files before creating).

Assessment

This skill appears to do exactly what it says: create a Kanban board and Dataview dashboard inside an Obsidian vault. Before running: (1) back up your vault or run the script in a test vault (the script will create files and can detect existing Board/Dashboard), (2) inspect the included scripts (they are short and local) if you want to confirm behavior, and (3) note that the publish helper uses npx (only relevant if you plan to publish the skill). If you don't want any code to run, you can instead copy the SKILL.md content and manually create the files in your vault.

Task management in Obsidian vaults using Kanban boards, Dataview dashboards, and structured task notes.

Setup

Run the setup script to initialize a task board in an Obsidian vault:

python3 scripts/setup.py <vault-path> [--folder <name>] [--columns <col1,col2,...>]

• vault-path: Path to the Obsidian vault root
• --folder: Subfolder to create (default: Tasks)
• --columns: Kanban columns (default: Backlog,Todo,In Progress,Review,Done)

This creates:

• <folder>/Board.md - Kanban board (requires Kanban community plugin)
• <folder>/Dashboard.md - Dataview dashboard (requires Dataview community plugin)

Tell the user to install Kanban and Dataview community plugins if not already installed.

Task Note Format

Each task is a separate markdown file with YAML frontmatter:

---
status: todo
priority: P1
category: revenue
created: 2026-02-03
due: 2026-02-07
---

# Task Title

Description and notes here.

## References
- [[linked-document|Display Name]]

## Status
- [x] Step completed
- [ ] Step pending

Frontmatter Fields

Field	Values	Required
status	backlog, todo, in-progress, review, done	yes
priority	P1, P2, P3	yes
category	free text (revenue, content, research, setup, project)	yes
created	YYYY-MM-DD	yes
due	YYYY-MM-DD	no
parked_until	YYYY-MM-DD	no

Priority Labels on Board

Use emoji prefixes on the Kanban board for visual priority:

• 🔴 P1 (urgent)
• 🟡 P2 (normal)
• 🟢 P3 (backlog/parked)

Managing Tasks

Create a Task

1. Create a markdown file in the tasks folder with frontmatter
2. Add a card to Board.md in the appropriate column:

- [ ] [[Task Name]] 🔴 P1 @{2026-02-07}

Move a Task

1. Update status in the task note's frontmatter
2. Move the card line in Board.md to the target column

Complete a Task

1. Set status: done in frontmatter
2. Move to Done column and mark checkbox:

- [x] [[Task Name]] ✅ 2026-02-03

Always update both Board.md AND the task note frontmatter to keep them in sync.

Linking Documents

Use Obsidian [[wikilinks]] to connect tasks to supporting documents:

## References
- [[2026-02-03-research-report|Research Report]]
- [[meeting-notes-jan|Meeting Notes]]

Store referenced documents in a sibling folder (e.g., Research/ next to Tasks/).

Dashboard Queries

The setup script creates a Dataview dashboard. Core queries:

Tasks by priority:

TABLE status, category, due
FROM "<tasks-folder>"
WHERE priority = "P1" AND status != "done"
SORT due ASC

Overdue tasks:

TABLE priority, category
FROM "<tasks-folder>"
WHERE due AND due < date(today) AND status != "done"
SORT due ASC

Recently completed:

TABLE category
FROM "<tasks-folder>"
WHERE status = "done"
SORT file.mtime DESC
LIMIT 10