Task extraction

When the agent writes a Markdown checkbox in a response, Vault Operator can turn it into a real note in your vault. The feature is on by default and lives in Settings > Vault > Task extraction. Every agent response is scanned post-hoc; matching lines become task notes that you can track, query, or feed into the Bases or TaskNotes plugins.

If the TaskNotes community plugin (id tasknotes) is active and preferTaskNotesPlugin is on, Vault Operator writes TaskNotes-compatible frontmatter (TaskNotesAdapter) so tasks show up in the TaskNotes list, kanban, and calendar views. Otherwise it falls back to the internal schema (TaskNoteCreator).

What gets extracted

A regex pattern scans for unchecked checkbox lines:

- [ ] follow up with Anna about pricing
* [ ] @Tom due: 2026-06-01 review the proposal

Two list markers count: - and *. The text after [ ] is the task body. Two optional patterns are parsed from the body:

• Assignee. A leading @PersonName or @PersonName: becomes the assignee field.
• Due date. A due: YYYY-MM-DD or (due: YYYY-MM-DD) anywhere in the body becomes the due date field. Other date formats (relative dates, written months) are not parsed.

Duplicate task texts in the same response are merged. The agent does not need to know task extraction exists; it just writes Markdown checkboxes as usual.

What you get

For each extracted task, the post-processing hook offers a dialog: X tasks found. Create notes? You see the task list, can deselect individual tasks, and confirm. Each accepted task becomes a note in the configured task folder (default Tasks).

Internal schema (TaskNoteCreator, ADR-027). Frontmatter is German and Bases-friendly:

---
Kategorie:
  - Task
Zusammenfassung: Review the proposal
Status: Todo
Dringend: false
Wichtig: false
Fälligkeit: 2026-06-01
Assignee: "@Tom"
Quelle: "[[Chats/2026-05-13-1234]]"
created: 2026-06-14
Notizen: []
---

# Review the proposal

The Kategorie: Task convention lets the Bases plugin recognize task notes for view and timeline rendering. The Quelle field links back to the conversation note that produced the task.

TaskNotes schema (TaskNotesAdapter). When the TaskNotes plugin is active, Vault Operator reads its fieldMapping and tasksFolder from data.json and writes the matching property names (title, status, due, dateCreated with full ISO 8601 timezone offset) plus the configured task tag, so TaskNotes views pick the notes up automatically.

Title generation

The agent writes free-form task text. The note title is auto-derived: take the first 7 to 8 words, cut before a natural phrase boundary (prepositions, conjunctions), title-case it. The filename is a slug of that title. This keeps filenames reasonable without forcing you to write short tasks.

When it runs

Extraction is a post-processing hook that runs after every assistant message (ADR-26). It does not block the agent loop. The dialog appears next to the response once parsing finishes.

If task extraction is off, the scan does not run, and checkbox lines stay as plain text in the chat log.

Limits

• Regex-only. A sentence like "we should review the proposal next week" has no checkbox, so it is not extracted. The agent decides what becomes a checkbox.
• Strict date format. due: 2026-06-01 works; due tomorrow or next Friday does not.
• Text-based deduplication. Two tasks with slightly different wording count as separate notes.
• The sourceNote backlink is a path. If you move or rename the source chat note, the backlink breaks.
• The Vault-tab toggle is binary. There is no per-agent or per-prompt switch yet.

Related decisions

• ADR-26: post-processing hook architecture
• ADR-27: task-note frontmatter schema (the kategorie: [Task] convention)

See also: Multi-agent and tasks guide, Settings reference: Vault.