Task Settings

Basalt gives you fine-grained control over task discovery, automated dates, status cycling, and presentation. Settings are persisted locally and take effect immediately across all notes and views.

Accessing Task Settings

Open Settings via the bottom-left gear icon or press Ctrl+, / Cmd+,, then select the Tasks category.

Configuration Options

Global Filter

• Key: tasks.globalFilter
• Default: "" (empty)
• Description: Optional string or tag (e.g., #task). When set, only checklist items containing this exact marker will be indexed and surfaced by task queries and boards. Unmarked checklist items remain plain Markdown lists.

Automated Date Management

Setting	Default	Behavior
Auto-add Done Date	true	Appends ✅ YYYY-MM-DD when a task status changes to done ([x]).
Auto-add Cancelled Date	true	Appends ❌ YYYY-MM-DD when a task status changes to cancelled ([-]).
Auto-add Created Date	false	Automatically appends ➕ YYYY-MM-DD whenever a new task is created via the task modal or shortcut.

Status Cycling Sequence

• Key: tasks.statusSequence
• Default: ['in_progress', 'done']
• Description: Defines the sequence of states when pressing the toggle shortcut (Mod+Enter / clicking a checkbox). By default, clicking an empty box cycles:
  1. [ ] (To Do)
  2. [/] (In Progress)
  3. [x] (Done)
  4. Returns to [ ] (To Do)

You can customize this sequence to skip in_progress or include on_hold (?).

Recurrence Options

• Key: tasks.removeScheduledOnRecurrence
• Default: false
• Description: When enabled, the scheduled date (⏳) is omitted from the newly spawned task instance upon recurring completion, keeping only the updated due date (📅).

Board Columns

• Key: tasks.boardColumns
• Default: ["todo", "in_progress", "on_hold", "done"]
• Description: Controls which status columns appear in the Task Board and their left-to-right order.

Priority Defaults

• Key: tasks.defaultPriority
• Default: "none"
• Description: Sets the default priority level assigned to newly created tasks when no explicit priority is chosen.