Disclaimer
Is this project open source? Yes
Is this project completely free? Yes
Is this project vibe-coded beyond the author’s ability to comprehend how it works? No
Community Directory: Operon
Source: GitHub - hasanyilmaz/operon: Task management system for humans and agents in Obsidian. · GitHub
Hi everyone! I am excited to finally share Operon 1.0.
I started Operon with a sentence in my notes:
Build your dream task and project management system to be used by your future team of agents and humans.
That was the spark. In practice, I wanted a task system that could live inside my Obsidian vault, stay close to Markdown, and still handle work that grows beyond plain checkboxes.
Planning started in February, and development began near the end of that month. Around 250 hours later, Operon has become my only task system, with roughly 3,000 tasks indexed. That was the test I cared about most: whether I could trust it every day.
What Operon tries to solve
Obsidian keeps work close to the notes where the thinking happens. As a vault grows, tasks naturally land in daily notes, project notes, meeting notes, references, checklists, and long-running areas.
They are often in the right place when written. Later, they still need to be found, edited, scheduled, repeated, tracked, or moved through a workflow. Operon tries to make that manageable without pulling the work out of Markdown: more than checkboxes, still Markdown.
Design notes and thank you
During planning, I looked at parts of other tools and Obsidian workflows that already felt useful.
Tasks and TaskNotes influenced creation and editing. Dataview and QuickAdd influenced compact inline metadata. ClickUp influenced Kanban swimlanes and pinned work. Notion, TickTick, Timing, and Toggl also shaped parts of the planning and timer workflow.
I am mentioning these because the Obsidian ecosystem made the design space clearer. The goal was not to clone those tools, but to adapt useful workflow ideas to Obsidian’s strengths: local Markdown files, links, reusable views, and context-rich notes.
The codebase is new. Operon was written from scratch around a task engine built specifically for this plugin.
The core idea
Every Operon task gets an operonId, so the same task can stay recognizable across notes, filters, Calendar, Kanban, the Task Editor, recurrence, pinned work, and time tracking.
Inline tasks and file tasks share the same model. The same canonical fields are reused across inline metadata, frontmatter, the editor, filters, Calendar presets, Kanban boards, cards, chips, and timers.
Tasks can also carry their own icon and color, so important work stays visually recognizable across views. The goal is not a separate task app inside Obsidian; it is a local task layer that stays part of the vault.
Inline tasks and file tasks in one system
Operon supports both natural task shapes: lightweight inline checkbox tasks inside existing notes, and larger file-based tasks that deserve their own Markdown file.
You can convert an inline task into a file task when the work grows, or convert a file task back into an inline task when it no longer needs its own note. Operon preserves the canonical task information during those changes.
Inline metadata uses compact {{key:: value}} fields after the task text. File tasks are useful for projects, research, content pieces, deliverables, subtasks, references, and decisions.
Creation, editing, search, and filters
Task capture can start from the command palette, current line, selected text, existing checkbox, Task Creator, file task, Calendar slot, Kanban cell, or external calendar event.
The Task Creator is for structured capture: inline or file task, metadata, parent task, dates, recurrence, icon, color, and target location.
The Task Editor gives structured controls for status, priority, dates, tags, contexts, assignees, parent tasks, dependencies, recurrence, pinning, and time tracking. For file tasks, the Markdown body stays close, so the task still behaves like a note.
The Task Finder is for the moment when you remember the work, but not the note that contains it. It searches inline and file tasks by names, ids, notes, metadata, dates, and related links.
Saved filters turn task rules into reusable work scopes for filter views, note embeds, side panels, Calendar presets, and Kanban presets.
Calendar planning
Calendar has two main planning modes. Time Grid is for day-style planning and time blocking. Tasks can appear as timed blocks, all-day items, due items, finished work, or projected recurring occurrences.
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.
Multi-Week is for a broader planning horizon: several weeks at once, work placed across days, and a focused day view when needed.
Read-only external ICS calendars can sit beside local Operon tasks, so outside commitments stay visible while actionable work remains local to the vault.
Kanban boards
Operon’s Kanban boards are built from task metadata, not from a separate board database. Columns come from pipeline statuses, so different boards can follow different workflows while still using the same task model.
Swimlanes can organize cards by priority, tags, contexts, assignees, due date, or scheduled date. Dragging cards updates the underlying task metadata, so Kanban, filters, Calendar, and the Task Editor stay aligned.
Kanban search narrows the board in place. Saved board presets can keep their own pipeline, filter, swimlane, appearance, and sort rules.
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.
For recurring file tasks, Operon can create the next Markdown file, reset plain checkboxes, recreate owned inline subtasks with fresh ids, update date or week tokens, and apply property cleanup rules.
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 records actual work sessions. FlowTime adds a focused countdown rhythm without using a strict Pomodoro model. Time Session History lets you review, edit, remove, or restart previous sessions.
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 actions can appear on pinned tasks, filter rows, Kanban cards, Calendar items, task pool entries, FlowTime tasks, and time history rows.
Actions change by surface: open editor, jump to source, mark done, start timer, pin or unpin, change status, cancel, unschedule, or skip an occurrence.
Operon stores settings and runtime data in the vault-level .operon folder. It does not include telemetry, analytics, tracking pixels, or background usage reporting. External ICS support only reads configured sources into Operon’s local cache.
Who this is for
Operon is probably most useful if your work already spans daily notes, project notes, meeting notes, long-running areas, recurring responsibilities, calendars, boards, or agent-assisted workflows.
I would love feedback from Obsidian users with complex task workflows. Demo videos are also coming soon, because many parts of the plugin make more sense in action.
Community plugin page:
Website:
Operon Docs — Download into your vault
Operon 2.0 is out
Operon 3 is out: Welcome, Agents
