halkyon/docs/adr/0033-halkyon-todo.md

ADR 0033: Halkyon Todo, what it does and how it looks

• Status: decided 1 Nov 2026, by the developer (D1–D10 below, the agent's recommendations taken as a whole). Built the same day: steps 1 to 3, Today and Upcoming as lists, recurrence, reminders and the week strip (step 4), the task pane on wide windows and search (D2).
• Numbering: 0025–0029 are held (ADR 0030's note), 0032 is Jellyfin's; this is the next free number.
• Builds on: ADR 0030, D7, D12, D14, D15 and D60 (Train's sealed rows, its shell, its frame and settings, which Todo takes); ADR 0017 (the account's keys); ADR 0031 (Todo's icon); Train's D61 (What's new).

Context

On 1 Nov 2026 the developer asked for work on Todo to start from 68 screenshots of Todoist's Android app (31 Oct 2026, ~/Downloads/todoist-screenshots-mobile/), "following the same foundational reasoning of Halkyon Learn and Halkyon Train": when the bar and when the rail, a wash of strawberry, settings grouped as theirs. What the screenshots show:

• Five tabs (Inbox, Today, Search, Upcoming, Browse), a floating add button above the bar, the bar's items and the button's side set by the person; Browse holds the projects, Reporting, templates and the cog to Settings.
• A task has a title, a description, a date (optional time and duration, "06:30–07:00") and, apart from it, a deadline (date only, its own icon, neutral colour; a task may have a deadline and no date), a priority (P1–P4), labels, reminders (relative to the time, automatic 30 minutes before a timed task; by location in the paid plans), a recurrence (completing it moves it on; its sub-tasks reset), sub-tasks (counted "0/5" on its row), comments with attachments. Rows colour the date by meaning (overdue red, tomorrow orange, this week purple).
• Projects have sections (name, description, count), seen as a list, as a board (a column a section, paged) or as a calendar (a week strip opening into the month, an agenda below). Today puts Overdue first, with Reschedule for all of them; Upcoming is an agenda from today on, or a 3-day grid of hours where a long press picks 30 minutes. Every view has its own Display sheet: layout, completed tasks, grouping, sorting, filters by date, deadline, priority and label.
• The task sheet shows a row for each field set and a chip for each one not, the sub-tasks, and a comment field at its foot; quick add is a card above the keyboard with chips (date, deadline, priority, reminders, project), dates recognised in what is typed.
• Productivity: a daily and weekly goal, streaks, karma, days off and a vacation mode; Reporting, the completed tasks by day.
• Settings: Account, General (home view, smart dates, reset sub-tasks, the week's first day, how "next week" and "weekend" are read, swipe actions), Theme, Navigation bar, Quick Add, Productivity, Reminders, Notifications (a morning overview and an evening review), About, What's new.

Decisions (1 Nov 2026, the developer's)

• D1 Todo's frame is Train's (ADR 0030, D60): go_router with a StatefulShellRoute, every tab keeping its own stack; halkyon_ui's NavigationFrame, a bar floating above the foot below medium windows and a rail with Todo's icon on top from medium on, a tick on every choice; Todo's account sheet goes. Over a frame of Todo's own, which would make the three apps behave differently on the same window.
• D2 Four tabs: Today, Upcoming, Inbox, Browse (recommended, over Todoist's five and over a bar the person arranges). Today opens. Browse holds the projects, the labels and, later, saved filters, with the cog to Settings atop it as Train's Home and Profile carry theirs. Search is an icon in every tab's app bar, not a tab, as neither Learn nor Train gives search a tab. Adding a task is a floating button above the bar (Train's TabScreen places it clear of the bar), on the rail's screen from medium windows on. From expanded windows on, a task opens in a pane beside its list, as Train's Maps opens a route's map beside the list (Material's list–detail layout), and in a bottom sheet below. Arranging the bar may come later; Search may become a tab if it proves to be used as one. As built (1 Nov): the pane is the frame's, beside whichever tab is shown (TaskPane around the shell's tabs), 420 wide, the list keeping the rest; a task tapped there opens in it, another replaces it, what was typed into the last kept. Narrowed below expanded, the pane hides and tasks open in sheets again. Search is a screen pushed onto the tab's own stack (back returns to the tab, a task found opens in the pane where there is one): as typed, the projects whose name holds it and the tasks every word is found in, in their title, description or labels' names, whatever the case and the accents, open ones first by their date, done ones last; on the device alone, which the screen says, as the instance reads no task (D5).
• D3 Every screen washes down from the top in strawberry (the developer's): TopGradient under the app's ScreenColor, PaletteColor.strawberry, as Learn's in cobalt and Train's in carrot; buttons and links stay cobalt.
• D4 Settings as Learn's and Train's (the developer's): a screen over the tabs, grouped in SectionCards. Sync's card first (as Learn's), the operator's card for whoever operates the instance, then Todo's own groups (Tasks: the week's first day from the language unless set, resetting sub-tasks; Reminders: the automatic reminder before a timed task, snoozing), the account near the foot (halkyon_app's AccountTiles, SimpleLoginSection, AccountSecuritySection), What's new and About Halkyon Todo last, the version small below them. Groups come as their settings are built; none is shown empty.
• D5 Todo's rows are sealed, always, as Train's (ADR 0030, D7, D15), synced with serverpod_offline_sync: every payload ADR 0017's sealed content under the person's data key (content_key, halkyon_app's PayloadEnvelope), nothing readable in a column, not a title nor a date. Recommended over readable rows (ADR 0002's default), which would let the server send reminders by email and a morning overview, and would make shared projects simpler: what a person plans to do is theirs, the server needs to read none of it to sync it, and Todo's rows can't be unsealed later without the person's devices. So reminders are scheduled on the device, as local notifications on each device that holds the account's keys; there is no email reminder and no overview the server writes. A project shared later is sealed under a key its members share, which is that step's to decide. As built (1 Nov, the developer's choice of flutter_local_notifications over awesome_notifications and platform code of Halkyon's own): a task's reminders are minutes before the time on its date, in its sealed payload, so every device of the person's reminds; a task with a day alone has none until the automatic reminder (D4) is a setting. Each device plans its reminders whenever the tasks change, comes to the front, or every six hours: the next 48 within 30 days (iOS keeps 64 pending), a recurring task's next time alone, each under an ID hashed from its task and offset so that planning again replaces it. They are scheduled with the system on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows, so they come while the app is closed, at their instant: a device moved to another zone has them moved once the app is opened. Linux schedules none, so there the running app shows them. Android brings them at the minute only where the person allows exact alarms (SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM, off by default since Android 14), else within a few minutes; the app doesn't send the person to that setting. The permission to notify is asked when a task first gets a reminder; a notification's text, the task's title, is hidden on a locked Android screen. Signing out, or switching person, cancels the person's reminders on the device. Tapping one opens the app, not yet its task.
• D6 Four tables: project, section, task, label (recommended, as Train keeps a workout and its series apart, D14): one row each, changed when edited, the last writer winning, every payload JSON with a schemaVersion, UUID v7 ids. Inbox is a project the app makes once per person, under a row ID keyed by the account (Train's D57, keyedRowId), not marked in its payload (as built, 1 Nov): every device makes the same row, so two making it offline write one, and the instance can tell neither which row is the Inbox nor whose it is; a payload's mark would let a moved row claim to be it. A sub-task is a task naming its parent. A task's payload: title, description, its project and section, its parent, its place among its siblings, a date (a day, or a day and a time with an optional duration, the time as the person's wall clock with its time zone), a deadline (a day), a priority (1–4), its labels' ids, a recurrence (D7), its reminders, when it was completed. Completing a recurring task moves its date on and writes the occurrence done into its payload's history, so Reporting can count it. Comments and attachments are a later step (attachments need sealed files, which no Halkyon app has yet).
• D7 A recurrence is a structured rule, set through a picker (recommended, over parsing what is typed): every n days, weeks (on which weekdays), months (on which day, or the nth weekday), years, from the date or from completion, until a day or for n times. Dates and tokens typed into quick add ("tomorrow 6am", "every Monday", #project, p1), in English and German, are a later step, built on the same rule. As built (1 Nov): the rule is part of the task's date (Repeat in TaskDate, its payload's date.repeat), so a task without a date doesn't recur and clearing the date ends it; schema 1 holds it, as no task was written before. Done, a task counted from its date moves to the rule's first day after both its date and today (an overdue one isn't moved onto a day already past), counted from completion it moves the rule's units on from today, on no particular weekday; its deadline moves as far, its time is kept, its done sub-tasks open again, and when it was done is added to its completions. Undo writes back every task that changed. The picker offers the rules that fit its day (every day, every weekday, its weekday, its day or nth weekday of the month, its day of the year) and a rule of the person's own; weeks start on Monday for every n weeks, until the week's first day is a setting (D4).
• D8 The first version (recommended): Inbox and projects with sections, shown as a list; sub-tasks; Today (Overdue first, rescheduling them together, then today's); Upcoming as an agenda with the week strip opening into the month; the task sheet (rows for the fields set, chips for the others, the sub-tasks); quick add; labels; completed tasks shown or hidden per view; reminders on the device. Later, each put to the developer when its turn comes: the board and calendar layouts, Upcoming's 3-day grid, each view's Display sheet (grouping, sorting, filters), saved filters, Reporting and goals (karma not before the developer asks for it), location reminders, comments and attachments, typed dates, sharing.
• D9 Colours that mean something come from halkyon_ui's palette (recommended): a project's colour is picked from PaletteColor, with its localised name, as Learn's colours are; priorities and dates take palette colours chosen not to blur against the strawberry wash, so overdue and P1 are cerise, not strawberry, P2 carrot, P3 cobalt, P4 none; tomorrow and this week as Todoist's meanings go, in palette colours. Each is checked against the wash in light and dark before it is kept.
• D10 The icon stays as ADR 0031 drew it (cobalt through pacific into fern), though the wash is strawberry: Learn's icon ends in strawberry and washes in cobalt, so an app's wash and its icon already differ, and Todo's and Meditate's icons are kept related (ADR 0031, D1). The agent made no recommendation; this is the default the decision of 1 Nov left in place, to be asked again if the screens look wrong beside it.

Decisions after trying it (1 Nov 2026, the developer's)

The developer used the first build beside Todoist's and asked for these; where an alternative was put to them, the choice is theirs.

• D11 Sheets are dialogs on the desktop, at every width (over the window's size alone, and over Todo alone): halkyon_ui's showAdaptiveSheet shows a centred dialog (Material's term) on Linux, macOS and Windows however narrow the window, and on phones and tablets a bottom sheet below expanded windows as before, so Learn and Train follow. A bottom sheet is a touch surface; rising from the foot of a desktop window it reads as a phone's screen. In a narrow window the dialog keeps a smaller margin.
• D12 The tabs are Inbox, Today, Upcoming, Browse; Today still opens (amends D2's order, not what opens).
• D13 A task's sheet names where the task is on top (its project, an icon once tasks are above it, then each task above it; the project goes to its list, a task opens in the sheet's place), as Learn's path through a studyset, and has a ⋮ menu in place of its close button (SheetScaffold's heading and closeButton): when it was added (from its UUID v7, so the payload needn't say it), Duplicate (with its sub-tasks, right after it), hiding or showing its done sub-tasks (hideDoneSubTasks in its payload, so every device hides them, schema 1 as nothing is released), Close in the pane, and Delete after asking. Copy link, View activity, Email to the task, Print and Open in a new window wait for what they need (deep links, an activity log; mailing in is ruled out by D5). The description's icon stays by its first line.
• D14 Rows and menus: a row shows its project and section ("Inbox / Errands" with the project's icon) at the end of the line of its date, not beside the whole row; every menu entry has its icon, a destructive one in the error colour (MenuEntry). A section's heading stays atop the list while its tasks scroll beneath it, until the next pushes it away (PinnedHeaderSliver). Upcoming's month unfolds in place beneath its strip, from its name or its handle dragged down, the arrows then going by month, the handle dragged up folding it; a button beside the month goes back to today once another week shows. Tasks are chosen to act on together, as Todoist's: a row swiped right or held, or Select tasks in Today's, Upcoming's and a project's ⋮, a tap then choosing or letting go (a row held is dragged since D16); the app bar counts them, with an arrow (or back) ending it, and a bar takes the navigation bar's place: date, move, labels (those all have ticked; a tick added to each, one unticked taken off each), priority, and ⋮ with complete (undone together), duplicate, deadline and delete (asked first). Assign waits for shared projects and View activity for a history, neither of which Todo has. A row swiped left asks for its date. Neither swipe removes the row; a sheet's sub-tasks and search's results aren't chosen (TaskSelection, one for the frame).
• D15 Typed tokens in quick add (amends D7's later step; the developer's, 1 Nov, after asking whether the keyboard's language could choose): #project, @label, {deadline}, !!1 and p1 to p4, !30m, dates and times (9am, Mon 18:00, ev Tue 7pm) and recurrences (every day, every 2 days, every second day), each highlighted as it is recognised and undone with a tap. The words are data, a table per language (weekdays, months, tomorrow, every, next, times), read in the app's language and English, so a new app language adds a table, not a parser. Not the keyboard's language: Flutter tells nothing of it, Android doesn't reliably, and it changes as the person switches keyboards while typing. Symbols hold in every language. As built (parseQuickAdd, QuickAddWords.en and .de): a # naming no project stays text, an @ naming no label makes one as the task is added; only the first of each kind counts, the rest stays in the title; a time alone is its next to come (tomorrow once it has passed today), a weekday alone the coming one (today too), next one after today; a month needs its day (may alone is a word), a number alone is none; a recurrence starts on its first day from today (every weekday on a Sunday: Monday). !30m makes a task without a time due 30 minutes from now, reminded then, and one with a time reminded 30 minutes before it; with a day but no time it is text. German's weekdays only by their whole names, its short forms (so, do, die, mit) being everyday words. Quick add shows its title alone at first, its chips once typing starts, a chip picked taking its token out of the title, and the description and the deadline behind its + (the description also from the down arrow).
• D16 Dragging (the developer's, 1 Nov, as Todoist's): a row of a project's list (the Inbox's too), held, is dragged into another place, a line showing where: the upper half of a row puts it before that row, the lower half after it, and the lower half reached 48 px to the right of where the drag began makes it that row's last sub-task; a section's heading takes it first in the section, or last in the group before from its upper half. It goes with its sub-tasks, and Order changed offers to undo it (TaskRepository.place, never under itself or its own sub-task). The list scrolls at its edges. Holding a row therefore drags it everywhere it can be dragged and no longer selects it (D14): a swipe to the right does. The add button is dragged straight away, without a hold, its place meanwhile a larger × where dropping it gives up: dropped between a project's rows, quick add adds there (each next task below the one before); on a day in Upcoming, for that day; on Today, for today. Today's and Upcoming's rows aren't dragged, their order being their dates', times' and priorities'.
• To come: suggestions of projects and labels as # and @ are typed; dragging a task onto another day in Upcoming.

Steps

1. The frame: go_router and NavigationFrame with the four tabs (empty screens that say what comes), the strawberry wash, the cog, Settings as D4 with what exists today (the account, What's new, About, the version); the account sheet removed.
2. The first synced model: content_key and project (Inbox made once), its gateway and repository on Learn's and Train's pattern, the server's access rules each with a test asserting denial; walked through with the developer as the first of Todo's.
3. Tasks: section, task, label; Inbox and a project's list; the task sheet; quick add.
4. Today and Upcoming, recurrence (D7), reminders on the device.
5. Todo's first release (0.1.0), its What's new drafted by tool/release.dart.

Consequences

• No email reminder, morning overview or evening review: the server can't read what is due. A device without the account's keys neither reads nor writes Todo's rows, as in Train.
• Todo's server holds no logic over tasks; what Today, Upcoming and Reporting show is worked out on the device, over every task the person has. That is fine for thousands of tasks; a person with far more would need the device to keep an index of its own.
• Sharing a project is harder than with readable rows (a key per shared project, its members' keys wrapping it); D5 accepts that for now.