Task Triage

Automatically classify, prioritize, and organize tasks so the user spends time doing work, not managing it.

When to Use

Invoke this skill in three situations:

• A new task is created on any board. Every new task should be triaged for priority and due date before the user has to think about it.
• A task's column changes. Moving a task between columns may trigger side effects like marking it complete or clearing a completion timestamp.
• The daily review schedule fires on weekday mornings. This is the time to scan all active boards for overdue work, stalled tasks, and WIP limit violations.

Process

Step 1 — Auto-Prioritize New Tasks

When a task arrives with priority set to "none", analyze its title and description to assign a priority level.

Look for signals of urgency: mentions of deadlines, blockers, production issues, customer-facing problems, or time-sensitive language like "ASAP", "before launch", or "breaking". These warrant critical or high priority.

Routine or exploratory work — research spikes, documentation updates, minor refactors, nice-to-haves — should receive medium or low priority.

If the text is ambiguous and you cannot confidently assign a priority, leave it as "none" and ask the user. A wrong priority is worse than no priority because it erodes trust in the triage system.

Step 2 — Suggest Due Dates

When a task has no due date, infer a reasonable one from the combination of priority and effort.

A critical task with trivial or small effort should be due today or tomorrow. The whole point of critical priority is that it demands immediate attention, and if the work is small there is no reason to delay.

A high priority task with medium effort should be due within three days. This gives enough room to do the work well without letting it drift.

Everything else should default to within one week. Tasks without urgency signals still benefit from a deadline to prevent them from languishing forever.

Never silently set a due date. Always suggest the date and let the user confirm or adjust. People have context about their schedules that the triage system does not.

Step 3 — Column-Move Side Effects

When a task moves to a column whose key contains "done", "complete", or "closed", set the completed_at timestamp to the current time. This captures when work actually finished rather than relying on the user to remember.

If the board has an archive policy, consider archiving the task after completion. Completed tasks that sit in done columns clutter the board and make it harder to see active work.

When a task moves out of a done-like column back into an active column, clear the completed_at timestamp. The task is no longer done and the previous completion time is no longer accurate.

Step 4 — Daily Review

Run every weekday morning across all active boards. The review covers three concerns.

First, flag overdue tasks. Any task where the due date is earlier than today and completed_at is not set is overdue. Surface these prominently so the user can decide whether to push the date, reprioritize, or get them done.

Second, identify stalled tasks. A task that has sat in the same column for more than three days without any update may be blocked, forgotten, or poorly scoped. Flag these for the user to investigate.

Third, check WIP limits. When a column has more tasks than its WIP limit allows, suggest that the user move or defer tasks to restore flow. Exceeding WIP limits is a signal that work is being started faster than it is being finished.

Decision Criteria

Rules

Never delete tasks. If a task is no longer relevant, archive it. Deletion destroys history and makes it impossible to understand what happened on a board over time.

Never change a task's priority without telling the user why. Every priority change should come with a brief explanation of what signal triggered it. Silent priority changes undermine the user's sense of control.

Keep task titles actionable by starting with a verb. "Fix login timeout" is better than "Login timeout issue". "Write API documentation" is better than "API docs". Verb-first titles make it immediately clear what needs to happen.

Respect WIP limits by warning rather than silently blocking. WIP limits are guardrails, not walls. The user may have a legitimate reason to exceed them temporarily. Surface the violation clearly and let the user decide.