Boards & Tasks
The core of Clarity: boards hold lists, lists hold task cards.
Boards
A board is one Kanban workspace with its own lists and sorting.
- Create / switch: click + in the sidebar to add a board; click a board to switch, or press 1–9 for the 1st–9th board, or [ / ] to move left/right.
- Rename / reorder: double-click a board name to rename; drag boards to reorder.
- Icon: pick a board icon from the icon picker.
- Sort mode: each board sorts its cards by manual (drag to arrange), priority, deadline, do date, start date, or created. Choose it from the board header.
- Card color mode: see Card colors below.
Lists (columns)
Lists are the columns within a board (e.g. To Do / Doing / Done).
- Add a list with +, reorder by dragging, rename inline, and collapse/expand or remove lists.
- Lists can carry Column Rules that highlight them when they get too full — see Settings & features → Column Rules.
Cards (tasks)
A card is a task. Create one by typing in a list's quick-add box, or with the Quick Add popup (a). Click a card to open the full editor; drag it to move between lists or reorder.
Quick Add
Press a for the Quick Add popup, or type in any list's quick-add box. As you type the title, Clarity recognizes shorthand tokens and lifts them out of the title:
| Token | Effect | Example |
|---|---|---|
!1 !2 !3 !4 | Set priority P1–P4 | Fix login !1 |
#tag | Attach a tag (you can add several) | Email #work #urgent |
@project | Assign to a project | Draft spec @website |
$board | Set the destination board | Fix login $engineering |
~template | Apply a template | ~standup notes |
| natural-language date | Set the do date | Call Sam tomorrow, Review in 2 days, Pay rent May 25, Plan last friday of may |
Notes on matching:
- Tags / projects / boards / templates only match things that already exist (case-insensitive, spaces ignored). Unmatched tokens stay in the title.
- Priority, project, board, template, and date take the first match; tags accept all matches.
- Dates use forward-date logic ("tomorrow", "in 3 months", a weekday, or a specific date). Vague phrases like a bare month or a bare time are ignored on purpose.
- In the popup, the date/priority/project/tag icon pickers override what you typed for that attribute (tags merge); the Board picker works the same way for
$board. $boardis only recognized in the Quick Add popup (a), which shows a destination list/project picker to match — not in a list's inline quick-add box, since that box already implies its destination.
The task editor
Click a card to open the detail editor. Fields available:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Title | The task name. |
| Notes | Free-text description. |
| Priority | P1–P4, or none. |
| Start date | When the task becomes available (before it, the task is deferred). |
| Do date + time | When you plan to work on it; the time anchors time-based reminders. |
| Deadline + time | When it's due; the time anchors time-based reminders. |
| Duration | Planned minutes (estimated effort). (if the Task Duration feature is on) |
| Checklist | Done/not-done sub-items. (if Checklist is on) |
| Tags | Multiple color-coded labels. (if Tags is on) |
| Project | Group the task into a project. (if Projects is on) |
| Milestone | Attach the task to a milestone (parent). |
| Depends on | Block this task until one or more other tasks on the same board are done. (if Task Dependencies is on) |
| Custom fields | Structured metadata you've defined. (if Custom Fields is on) |
| Reminders | Time-based or activity nudges. (if Reminders is on) — see Settings & features → Reminders |
| Recurrence | Make the task repeat. — see Settings & features → Recurring tasks |
| Flexible | Roll the do date to today, or expire the task, instead of it going overdue. (if Flexible Tasks is on) — see Settings & features → Flexible tasks |
| Jira link | Status syncs with the linked Jira issue. — see Integrations → Jira |
Press ⌘↵ (or Ctrl+↵) to save, Esc to close.
Availability: available / deferred / blocked
Every active task has a computed availability (you don't set it directly):
- Available — ready to work on now.
- Deferred — its start date is still in the future.
- Blocked — it's waiting on something earlier: a child of a milestone that isn't its turn yet, a task in a sequential project/milestone whose predecessors aren't done, or a task listed in its Depends on field that isn't done yet.
Use the board header's Show control to either hide unavailable tasks or show them greyed out.
Bulk actions
Select multiple cards (Ctrl/Cmd-click or Shift-click) to reveal the bulk action bar, where you can move them to a list/project, assign a milestone, add/remove tags, set priority, mark done/reopen, or delete — all at once.
Card colors
The board header's Card color control tints cards by a chosen dimension:
| Mode | Color comes from |
|---|---|
| None | No tint. |
| By Project | The project's stripe color. |
| By Date | Bucketed: overdue / today / future (uses the deadline, falling back to the do date). |
| By Priority | The P1–P4 colors. |
| By Custom Field | A select field's option colors. |
Milestones
A milestone is a parent task that groups child tasks and tracks their progress (done/total). Assign a task to a milestone from its editor or the bulk bar. Milestones can be sequential (children unlock in order) or parallel (all available at once), which feeds the availability rules. Milestones also appear on the project timeline — see Settings & features → Projects.