Operon is live: task and project management system for Obsidian

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.1.1 is out

Grouped improvements:

Filters, wherever you are

• Kanban Filter pop-over: edit the active preset filter or create and attach a new one in place
• The same pop-over now shares one lifecycle and visual language across workspace Tables, embedded Tables, and Kanban, aligned with the full Filter editor

Calendar

• Correct a completion date by dragging: tasks in the Finished row can now be moved to another completion date
• In Day time chips take their background and border colors from the task’s configured color instead of the interface accent
• Multi-day All Day tasks are draggable again, preserving both their duration and the grabbed-day offset

Tables

• Datetime columns standardized across built-in and custom fields: detailed cells show a readable date with seconds, compact cells show hours and minutes, tooltips use the detailed format, and both modes respect your 12-hour or 24-hour preference with sensible default widths
• The task contextual menu now opens from Task Type icons too, while keeping their existing click-to-open behavior

[picksle]

I have been trying out Operon over the past few weeks. It looks very good and polished but I’m still getting used to it. I do like the idea that task notes and inline tasks have the same status. I have a few questions about it, to see if it fits in with my workflow.

I generally organise my tasks into categories, for example Home Lab, House etc. Under these categories I have projects (parent tasks?) which have sub tasks. I’d like to see everything on one page, presumably the Tables page, grouped by category and showing parent tasks with their sub tasks. Do you have the concept of categories in Operon, that would allow me to work in this way?

I’d also like to include task views within a note. I think this might be possible but can you point me at the docs for this?

I seem to remember that task notes can be kept in a tasks folder or in with the general notes folder. Is this correct? I can see the advantage to both ways of organising tasks and would like to try both ways. Can you give me more information about this?

Thank you for all the hard work you have put into this. It shows with how polished it looks.

[hasanyilmaz]

hi @picksle ,

according to your description, I think you can use the “parentid” groouping. so you can see you r parent task directly top of its subtasks.

“include task views within a note”, you mean embed views probably. only filters and tables can be embeddable. you car find embed code in their preset settings, bottom of the preset.

i dont understand clearly about your last question. task files can be anywhere in your vault. can you explain more about your question?

thx for your feedback

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.5 is out

Whats new and improved:

Task Router

• One Settings area for Inline Task destinations with heading placement and parent-aware routing, File Task folders with default and pipeline-specific choices, and a File Task Archive for finished and cancelled tasks
• Plus delayed pipeline movement, pipeline-specific archives, and fallback routing when a configured destination cannot be used
• Routing changes location, not identity: an eligible File Task keeps its operonId, fields, relationships, and history when it moves between configured folders

Daily and Weekly Notes

• Operon-managed periodic notes with configurable formats, folders, templates, and task headings, usable as the default inline destination
• Missing notes can be created from the configured template at capture time
• Eligible Operon containers establish parent-child relationships, while existing plain Markdown notes stay unadopted
• Changing a scheduled date realigns the periodic parent without physically moving the task

New task fields

• Task Type: a canonical user-controlled Text field for inline and File Tasks, available across task creation, the Task Editor, compact surfaces, filters, Tables, and Runtime V1, with chip-based editing and an icon-and-border Table presentation that supports column color modes
• Task Image and Task Gallery: Task Image holds one reference, while Task Gallery keeps an ordered list of vault-relative paths, wikilinks or embeds, and HTTP/HTTPS URLs. Supported media gets compact labels, hover previews, and click-to-open, and Kanban cards can optionally show Task Image or the first or last gallery item
• Task Data Type: a read-only Table field distinguishing inline from File Tasks. Worth noting if you have existing Tables: this takes over the identity role of the former synthetic Task Type, which is now a separate, user-controlled field

Also in 3.5

• Operon CLI 1.2.0 is out alongside this release
• New Operon Task gains Live Preview-style Markdown editing for Task Description and Additional Task Notes, including multiline notes with Shift+Enter
• Kanban swimlane labels get centered expanded titles, counts below the title, nested-tag wrapping at slash boundaries, and consistent single-line truncation when collapsed
• Blocking and Blocked By Workflow Pickers are on by default for new installations, while existing saved visibility choices are preserved
• Deleted Table preset files or folders no longer leave stale Missing file entries in Settings, and existing orphaned references are cleaned up without touching saved filters
• New Operon Task template results use the dedicated information panel again instead of repeating under every template name

Task Router: Task Router - Operon Docs
Daily and Weekly Notes: Daily and Weekly Notes - Operon Docs
Task images and galleries: Task images and galleries - Operon Docs

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.6 is out

Operon is a task and planning system for Obsidian, covering both inline tasks and file tasks, with Kanban, Calendar, time tracking, filters, and Tables all built on one task model.

Tables now have a timeline. Gantt opens beside an Operon Table and answers the questions a date field cannot: how long does this run, what comes before it, and what moves when it moves.

Gantt view

• Opens from the Table toolbar using the current preset. It is not a separate view, command, or filter: the same rows, columns, grouping, and sorting stay in place, and the same button closes it
• Day to Week and Week to Month timelines, with daily-precision task bars and date markers
• Drag and resize to schedule, with dependency connectors drawn between bars
• Create a linked task directly from a dependency port
• Optionally move open descendants along with a parent bar
• Off-screen date navigation, completed-task styling, floating timeline controls, and stable viewport retention

Superfast Tables

• Tables are dramatically faster than before, both in rendering and in scrolling, which now stays smooth instead of stalling
• One responsive virtualized scroll transport drives both the split Gantt view and plain desktop Tables, so rapid scrolling no longer leaves blank or delayed rows, and your position is preserved when Gantt opens or closes
• Tested with Gantt open, 30 columns visible, and thousands of tasks, with no interruption

Task Tree column

• Expandable parent-child hierarchies inside Tables, while the original Table results are preserved
• Repeated contexts, orphaned relationships, and cycles stay deterministic and fail-safe, as do row coloring and workspace and embedded rendering

Parent dates that follow their children

• A new opt-in automation, Automatically expand parent task date range, moves a parent’s start date earlier or its due date later when a descendant’s Start, Scheduled, Due, or Completed date falls outside the current range. It never shrinks project dates you set yourself

Improved

• Kanban drops now settle affected cards, cells, counters, and swimlanes in place instead of rebuilding the whole board, removing board-wide blinking and first-scroll lag after a move
• Calendar hidden-time controls use native dropdowns at 30-minute intervals through the end of the day, while existing custom quarter-hour values are preserved

Fixed

• Kanban card moves no longer fail, snap back, or get overwritten during temporary index drift, overlapping operations, recurrence replacement, or manual-order settlement, and the viewport no longer shifts after task edits and moves
• Custom-list swimlane moves, particularly No value to value transitions, are no longer rejected because the selected custom field was treated as unwritable
• Deleting a task from the Task Editor no longer leaves broken relationship IDs: direct children drop the deleted parentTask reference, and surviving tasks remove the deleted ID from Blocking and Blocked By
• Table search keeps its caret and selection while results update, and the Group/Sort popover stays open until you dismiss it
• Operon no longer recreates Default table.table after the last Table file was deleted or briefly unavailable during a move
• Tasks with active blockers can now save Scheduled dates and the configured scheduled-status automation, while unrelated blocked transitions stay protected

Thanks for the support, in whatever form it takes.

Stay in flow.

Gantt view: Gantt view - Operon Docs

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.7 is out

Version 3.7 adds countdowns across your workspace and gives you more control over how task icons behave.

See what is approaching

The new Upcoming Tasks sidebar gathers tasks from their Scheduled and Due dates into a daily list, with separate Timed and All-day groups.

Choose how many days to include, see the time remaining before a scheduled start, and start or stop tracking directly from a card. Unlike Pinned Tasks, this list updates automatically from your dates.

Open it with Operon: Open upcoming tasks.

Keep the next task in view

A new status bar countdown shows your next timed task while you work elsewhere in Obsidian.

Choose what happens when you click it: start tracking, open the Task Editor, or go to the task’s source. When the countdown reaches zero, you can keep that task visible or let the indicator move to the next one.

Add countdowns to your Tables

The new Countdown column works in both Tables and embedded Tables. Count toward Scheduled, Due, or whichever date comes first.

Compact mode shows the largest remaining unit, such as 3d or 2h. Detailed mode shows more of the duration, while the hover tooltip adds live seconds for timed targets. Your table stays easy to scan, with the full countdown available when you need it.

Choose how task icons work

Clicking a task icon can now follow one of two paths:

• Follow pipeline: advance through your workflow—for example, Inbox → Planned → In Progress → Paused → Finished.
• Cycle task state: move directly through Open → Finished → Cancelled, returning to the pipeline’s initial status when reopened.

Follow pipeline remains the default. The same preference applies on desktop and mobile, so you can choose between moving work through its stages and changing its overall state.

Upcoming Tasks guide: Upcoming Tasks - Operon Docs

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.8 is out for visual planners on Canvas

Your tasks can now live where you think about them: arranged spatially on a Canvas, or sitting inside the note that explains the work. Both are views of a task you already have, linked by its operonId, so the task itself stays in its Markdown source and every surface shows the same state.

Canvas Task Cards

• Create, find, and manage tasks directly on an Obsidian Canvas, with a searchable Task Pool for pulling existing tasks onto the board
• Convert an existing text card into a task, or create a task straight from an arrow
• Draw parent-child and blocking relationships in either direction, regardless of which way the arrow points, with clear relationship tooltips and customizable icons
• Interactive task controls, synchronized colors, content-fitting cards, and touch support

Embedded Task Cards

• Place one task inside a note as a live, interactive card, next to a project brief, in a meeting note, or on a dashboard
• Customizable images, metadata, progress, layout, and text wrapping
• Copy a ready-to-paste embed from Task Editor. The same task can appear in several notes and on Canvas at once, each card showing the same underlying work

Thanks for the support, in whatever form it takes.

Stay in flow.

Canvas Task Cards: Canvas Task Cards - Operon Docs

Embedded Task Cards: Embedded Task Cards - Operon Docs

[Sdon]

Hi Hasan, thanks for all your hard work. It makes each day a little easier for all of us!

Is there currently a way to make a 7-day Time Grid behave as a fixed calendar week rather than a rolling 7-day range?

I’d like my weekly view always to run Sunday–Saturday. At present, the visible range follows the anchor date, so if the anchor moves to Monday the view becomes Monday–Sunday and I have to manually select Sunday again.

Ideally, the preset would resolve whichever date is selected to the calendar week containing it. For example, selecting Wednesday 16 September would still show Sun 13 - Sat 19, and moving forward or back a week would preserve the Sunday–Saturday structure.

It would be useful if the first day of the week could follow Obsidian’s own week-start preference, with an optional preset override if needed.

I’d still want the existing rolling N-day behaviour to remain available for views such as 2-day or 3-day planning.

Is this already possible, or if not, would you consider adding a fixed calendar-week option to Time Grid presets?

Many thanks,

Sam

[Sdon]

Hi Hasan, just a further thought about Operon’s calendar.

Would it be possible to make the Calendar time-grid scale more granular?

For a 7-day weekly overview, 0.50x is a little too tall, while 0.25x is slightly too compressed. Something around 0.35–0.40x would probably give a better balance between fitting most of the day on screen and keeping event blocks readable.

Rather than adding only one additional fixed value, it might be useful to allow a few more intermediate steps or a custom scale value.

Is this already possible anywhere in Operon, or would you consider adding it?

Many thanks,

Sam

[hasanyilmaz]

hi @Sdon

fixed calendar week very possible for grid views. i will definitely add it in grid based calendar presets. current rolling will still be there. planned.

grid scale, i was thinking about these to remove completely. 0.25 and 0.50. that views are too small and hardly readable. that tiny balance request surprised me. need to think about it. i will re check current scales.

thank you for your feedback.

[Sdon]

Hi Hasan,

Thanks for getting back to me and for giving these ideas some thought. A fixed calendar week alongside the rolling view sounds great.

I can see why the smaller scales raise readability concerns. On my screen, 0.50x requires quite a lot of vertical scrolling in the 7-day view, while 0.25x feels too cramped. A little more adjustment might help people find a comfortable balance for their screen.

One other thing I’ve noticed is that long task names are cut off in Table view, making the list difficult to scan. Would you consider optional text wrapping in the Task column, with rows expanding to fit?

Thanks again,

Sam

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.10 is out

This one is mostly about Canvas.

Open the new Property Value Pool next to a Canvas. It brings the values you already use across your task properties into one unified, searchable place: statuses, priorities, tags, dates, reminders, and more. Drag a value onto a card and the task is updated, without ever opening the Task Editor.

Groups take it one step further. Lay out your Project pipeline as four groups, Brainstorming, Planned, In Progress, and Finished, and moving a card from one to the next moves the task along with it. It works the other way too: finish a task from Kanban or the Task Editor, and with automatic routing its card slides into Finished on its own.

If there is no Finished group on the board, the card does not get lost. It goes into Group Mismatches, an area on the Canvas where cards are sorted by their new value, and Operon can route it again once a matching group exists.

Canvas also feels quicker when you pan around or update tasks.

Outside Canvas, Time Grid and Time Tracker Grid get an optional full-week view, with your own week start and the choice to hide weekends.

Stay in flow.

Operon Groups in Canvas: Operon Groups in Canvas - Operon Docs

Canvas Property Value Pool: Canvas Property Value Pool - Operon Docs

[hasanyilmaz]

hey Sdon,

fixed calendar week implemented in 3.10 release. thx for the fr.

long task names are not cut off actually. if you expand the column width, you can see the whole task name.

if the column width is not enough for the task name, it can be shown in a tooltip on hover too.

can you share a screenshot of your issue?

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.10.1 is out

How much time did this project actually take last week? A new Tracked time filter condition answers that directly. Pick a period, and your filtered views show only the sessions and durations recorded in it, so the totals you see belong to that week and not to the whole history of the task.

You can also fix those sessions where you find them. Duration and Trackers cells in Tables now show readable session chips with a short breakdown on hover, and you can edit a time entry right there. Clicking an empty part of a Trackers cell opens Add time.

Tables with long time-tracking histories scroll more smoothly now, and wide tables lag less under a mouse wheel or trackpad, embedded ones included. Operon also does less work at startup, so it is ready a little sooner.

Duration, totalDuration and trackers columns are the main updated cells. You can design your tracked history table with these better.
As a tip Duration column also have 2 options in detailed cell view: show total and show sessions.

Stay in flow.

Time tracking: Time tracking - Operon Docs

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon - 3.11 & 1.13 - Obsidian

I have mixed feelings about Obsidian’s new approach to settings, and I still prefer parts of the old layout.

But it’s time to move on. Rather than maintain two interfaces, I’ve focused on making Operon’s new settings as clear and useful as possible. Starting with this release, the legacy settings interface will no longer be available.

Improved

• Improved Settings throughout Operon with clearer headings and groups, contextual help links, and consistent controls and spacing. Dependent options appear only when relevant, making pages easier to navigate on narrow and wide screens.
• Expanded and reorganized Settings search with over 600 separate search targets in the default configuration, making settings, actions, and configurable items easier to find. Results take you directly to the relevant control or section; coverage varies with your configuration.
• Expanded contextual documentation help throughout Operon’s 41 Settings pages, with 122 help links pointing to 82 unique documents, making relevant guidance easier to find while configuring Operon.

Changed

• Operon now requires Obsidian 1.13.7 or newer and uses its native Settings pages and search. Removed the legacy Settings interface for older Obsidian versions.

Operon - Stay in flow..

[hasanyilmaz]

Operon 3.12.0: Tasks Meet Excalidraw

With Operon 3.12.0, I wanted to make more room for visual planning. I mostly use whiteboards for brainstorming and longer-term vision boards, so bringing some of Operon’s Canvas features into Excalidraw made sense to me. I don’t need every idea on a board to become a task. But I like having that option when there’s something I want to follow through on.

You can now keep real tasks alongside sketches and handwritten notes, turn drawing text into a task, or create a new task at the end of an arrow. One detail I particularly like is being able to manage parent and child relationships and blocking dependencies directly from those connections.

The drawing itself can also be a file task, with inline tasks stored inside it. It becomes a visual container for an entire project. You could use it to plan a YouTube video from research to publishing, or organize a product launch with its tasks, dependencies, and working notes in one place.

That also opens up a useful template workflow. If you follow a similar process for every video or launch, you can use a drawing as a reusable starting point instead of rebuilding the plan each time.

Explore the docs

• Excalidraw Task Cards
• Canvas and Excalidraw Task Pool
• Canvas and Excalidraw Property Value Pool