Tasks

Track work items across profiles with a lightweight task management system built into ARC. Tasks can be assigned to specific profiles, filtered by status, and scheduled with cron expressions.

Creating Tasks

arc tasks create "Implement login page"
arc tasks create "Implement login page" --priority high --assignee work
arc tasks create "Run nightly tests" --priority medium

Listing and Filtering

arc tasks list
arc tasks list --status working
arc tasks list --status pending --priority high
arc tasks list --assignee work

Updating Tasks

arc tasks update <id> --status working
arc tasks update <id> --status completed
arc tasks update <id> --priority critical
arc tasks stop <id>

Task Properties

Property	Values	Default
Status	pending, working, completed, blocked	pending
Priority	low, medium, high, critical	medium
Assignee	Any profile name	unassigned

Tasks assigned to a profile are displayed in that profile's detail view in the TUI.

TUI Task Management

The TUI Tasks view displays real task data from the TaskStore with full keyboard-driven management.

Key	Action
n	Create a new task
d	Delete the selected task
Enter	Toggle task status (pending → working → completed)
↑ / ↓	Navigate the task list

Tasks assigned to the active profile are highlighted. Status changes made in the TUI are immediately reflected in the CLI and Web Dashboard.

Web Dashboard Task Management

The Web Dashboard Tasks view provides the same full CRUD capabilities through a browser interface:

• Create — add new tasks with title, priority, and assignee
• Update — change task status, priority, or assignment
• Delete — remove tasks from the store

All changes are broadcast over WebSocket, so every connected client sees updates in real time. The Tasks view also supports filtering by status, priority, and assignee.

TIP

Tasks are fully managed from all three interfaces — CLI, TUI, and Web Dashboard. Changes made in any interface are immediately visible in the others.

Cron Scheduling

Schedule tasks to run on a recurring basis using standard 5-field cron expressions.

# Every day at 2 AM
arc tasks cron create "Nightly lint check" --schedule "0 2 * * *"

# Every Monday at 9 AM
arc tasks cron create "Weekly review" --schedule "0 9 * * 1"

arc tasks cron list
arc tasks cron delete <id>

The cron store persists schedules in ~/.arc/tasks/tasks.json alongside regular tasks.

Agent-to-Agent Messaging

The task system includes an in-memory message bus for inter-agent communication. Agents can send structured messages to each other via the MessageBus:

// Subscribe to messages
messageBus.subscribe('worker-1', (msg) => {
  console.log(`Received: ${msg.content}`);
});

// Send a message
messageBus.send({
  from: 'coordinator',
  to: 'worker-1',
  content: 'Start task #42',
});

This enables coordination patterns in multi-agent setups, particularly in Dark Factory mode.

Storage

Tasks are stored in ~/.arc/tasks/tasks.json as a flat JSON array. Each task has a unique ID, creation timestamp, and update timestamp.

The web dashboard exposes tasks via the /api/tasks REST endpoint, and task changes are pushed in real-time over WebSocket.