Query language

A query is a line of text that says which things to show and how: assignee:me is:open sort:due is your open tasks, soonest due first. The same language runs every query bar in the app:

• Tasks - the Tasks page, every saved view, a project's, milestone's or label's tasks, and a doc's live task lists.
• Dashboards - the filters every chart shares.
• Search (⌘K / CtrlK) - across every kind, see Searching across kinds.
• The hubs - Projects, Milestones, Docs, Views and Dashboards.
• Activity, the Shared links list, a form's rules and a Database.
• Outside the app - the REST API and AI tools.

This page covers task queries first, then what's different elsewhere.

#The query bar

In a task view, the query bar (f q) holds the whole view as text: filters, layout, grouping, sorting and display. Changing the chips updates the text and the other way round. It suggests fields and values as you type, applies the query as soon as it's complete, and says under the bar what it can't read, such as a field it doesn't know.

Its suggestions look like the filter chips' menus: a task shows its status, key, title, priority, project and type, a person their avatar, a Space its icon, and a status, priority, type or label its color, so two tasks with the same title are easy to tell apart. A project, milestone, Space or person shows its key on the right, and a label its folder.

They're in the same order as a filter chip's menu, too: the value the cursor is in comes first, ticked, then unset and any, then everything else, with a line between each part. Once you start typing, the best match comes first instead, so Enter picks it.

Wherever a new clause can start - as soon as you click or Tab into the bar, or after a space that ends a clause - the list of fields opens, so you can see what you can filter by without knowing the names. Nothing in it is picked until you press the arrows, so Enter still runs the query; Escape closes the list.

A query is a list of field:value clauses separated by spaces. Words without a field match task names and keys.

#How a clause is written

Every field is written the same way: lowercase, with a dash between words (started-before:, blocked-by:). A field of the task itself is plain (status:, due:); a field of something the task is linked to is the kind, a dot, then the field (milestone.target:, project.name:). project: on its own is the project, by its key - short for project.key:. Every kind has a .key and a .name. task. in front of a field is the task's own, so task.status: is status:. The same form is used across the app, on the Activity page and in the hubs' query bars.

You can also type or paste a query into search (⌘K / CtrlK), which shows its clauses as chips and suggests as you type, like this bar: Open as query opens it in a Query tab, and Save as view saves it as a new view. Search also finds projects, docs, milestones and the rest by their fields - see Searching across kinds.

#Filters

kind:task says what a query finds, and every query bar starts with it as a chip with a lock, since it can't be edited: kind:task in Tasks and on dashboards, kind:activity on the Activity page, kind:project in the Projects hub. Typing it changes nothing; any other kind is an error. kind: is what comes back, while project: only narrows it: kind:task project:P-0003 is the tasks in that project, not the project.

A page that always shows part of the workspace shows that part locked after kind:task, inside the same locked chip, the same as its locked filter chips: project:P-0003 on a project's page, milestone:R-0046 on a milestone's, and space:S-0002 when it's kept in a Space (a saved view or dashboard in a Space too). They can't be removed and aren't saved with the query. Inside a Space, the filter menus and the bar's suggestions offer only that Space's projects and milestones, since another Space's could never match.

The names the bar wrote before still work and mean what they did - projectKey:, taskParentKey:, taskRootKey:, taskKey:, taskTitle:, blocksTaskKey:, blockedByTaskKey:, relatedTaskKey:, taskStarted: and milestoneTarget: and the like - so saved views, dashboards and links keep working. When the bar writes a query out, it uses the names above.

#Folders

project.folder:, milestone.folder: and label.folder: find tasks by the hub folder their project, milestone or labels are filed in. Write a folder as its path, top folder first, with / between the levels, in quotes when it has spaces: project.folder:"Plan Things Better / Web". The spaces around / don't matter, and neither does case.

• A folder takes in everything inside it, however deep: project.folder:"Plan Things Better" finds the tasks of every project in that folder and in the folders inside it.
• - cuts a branch out: project.folder:"Plan Things Better" -project.folder:"Plan Things Better / Obsidian" leaves out the Obsidian folder and everything inside it.
• A folder's name alone finds every folder with that name, at any depth: project.folder:Web finds both Plan Things Better / Web and Abundant Life / Web. The suggestions show each folder's full path, so picking one writes the path that finds just it.
• unset and any: project.folder:unset is tasks whose project isn't in a folder, or that have no project; project.folder:any is tasks whose project is in one.

They're also in the Filter menu, as Project folder, Milestone folder and Label folder, each once that hub has a folder (and Milestone folder once there are milestones). Each lists the hub's folders by their full path, then No folder; picking a folder takes in the ones inside it, as in a query.

The folder: of projects, milestones, docs, views, dashboards and labels, in their hubs' query bars and in search, works the same way.

#Stuck work

blocked-by:open finds tasks still waiting on unfinished work: at least one task blocking them is neither completed nor canceled (an archived blocker counts as finished). A task whose blockers are all done or canceled doesn't match, though blocked-by:any still does. -blocked-by:open is the other way round: nothing left to wait on. Add is:open to leave out tasks that are finished themselves: is:open blocked-by:open sort:due.

#Combining and excluding

• Several values - separate them with commas: status:Todo,"In Progress" matches either. Different fields must all match. A field written twice is the same as one with both values: -status:Done -status:Canceled is -status:Done,Canceled, and the query bar merges them into one chip once the query runs. A custom field is the exception - each of its clauses has to match on its own.
• Spaces in a name - put it in quotes: project:"Website redesign".
• Excluding - put - before the field: -status:Done hides Done tasks, -root:T-0042 hides that task and everything connected to it.
• You - me means whoever is looking: assignee:me, mentions:me.
• Not set, or set - unset matches a task with no value (assignee:unset, due:unset), and any a task with one (project:any, custom.points:any). Every field that takes one takes the other, and - turns one into the other: -project:any is the same as project:unset. Every task has a status, a creation date and a last change, so status:unset, created:unset and updated:unset never match, and the bar warns you. A custom field kept to some Spaces or task types counts only the tasks it applies to (more).
• Has or holds - anything a task has is a field like the rest (project:any, checklist:open); there's no has:, and the bar says which field to use instead (has:project → project:any). is: is only for the task as a whole: is:open, is:unscheduled, is:recurring.
• Text that looks like a clause - put it in quotes: "status:todo" searches titles for those words.
• Exactly as stored - a value with an equals sign in front (label:="q3-launch") skips me, unset, any and name matching - label:=any is a label named "any", checklist:=open a checklist named "open". The bar writes a value this way when it can't put a name to it.

Tasks, projects, milestones and Spaces are named by their key (parent:T-0042, project:P-0003, space:S-0002), which is how the bar writes them. A project's, milestone's or Space's name works too (project:Website, space:"Client work"); if two share a name, the bar says so - use the key.

Labels are written by name. The suggestions show the folder each label is in, and when two labels share a name, picking one writes it by its id, so the query finds just that one.

#Dates

Every date clause takes a day, written YYYY-MM-DD, or words for one that move with the calendar:

• A day near today: today, yesterday, tomorrow, or today moved by days, weeks, months or years: today-28d (28 days ago), today+2w, today-1m, today+1y.
• A stretch of days: this-week, last-week, next-week, the same for month, quarter and year (last-month, this-year), and last-7-days, next-30-days and the like. Weeks run Monday to Sunday.
• A range: two of either with .. between them, both ends included: due:2026-10-01..2026-10-31, created:today-7d..today.

A word is saved as you wrote it, so a view or dashboard of due-before:today shows what's past due every day, without being changed. It's read by the date where you are (your profile's time zone), and an open view moves on by itself at midnight. A shared link reads it by the date of whoever made the link.

On a stretch of days, due:this-week is a day in it, due-before:this-week is before its first day and due-after:this-week after its last.

While you type, the suggestions offer these words with the days they mean beside them, and a date typed the way your workspace writes dates becomes that day. The Filter menu's date filters offer the same words as quick picks beside the calendar, and Filter → Overdue is is:overdue.

The same words work for a task's milestone and project dates (below), date custom fields (custom.follow-up:<today), the Activity page's activity.after: and activity.before:, and the dates in every hub and in search.

#Milestone and project dates

A task can be found by its milestone's or project's dates too: tasks in milestones due this month, or in projects made before the summer. Each takes a day, unset (no milestone or project, or that date isn't set on it) or any, and has a -before: and -after: form, like the task's own dates: milestone.target-before:2026-11-01. They're also in Filter → Milestone dates and Filter → Project dates.

#Open, unscheduled and archived

#Layout and display

The query bar always shows layout:, group: and sort:, even when nothing is filtered, so you can see which layout you're in. Pick another layout and its layout: takes the old one's place. A query without layout: shows a list.

#Examples

#Searching across kinds

Search (⌘K / CtrlK) reads the same language, across everything it finds: tasks, projects, milestones, docs, views, dashboards, Spaces, chat channels, labels, templates and members. Templates show for people who can use them, as on the Templates page.

• kind: picks what comes back: kind:project,doc. The chip beside the search box shows it - All kinds without one - and picking kinds there writes kind: for you.
• A plain field is each item's own: status:todo finds tasks and projects in Todo, status:draft docs in Draft. Something without that field (a label has no status) doesn't match.
• {kind}.{field} is that kind's field, and finds those items and everything linked to them: project.name:website finds the Website project, its tasks and the docs attached to it.
• {kind}: on its own is that item by key or name: project:P-0003, space:"Client work".
• Words beside them narrow it by name, as in any search: kind:doc owner:me brief. They match an item's description (or a member's email) too.

Dates take a day, words like today or this-week (see Dates), unset or any, with -before and -after (project.created-after:2026-09-01). A query that's also a task query (status:todo) still offers Open as query for its tasks.

#Other query bars

Every other query bar is written the same way - field:value, commas for several values, - to exclude, unset and any, quotes around spaces - with fields of its own. Each one suggests them as you type.

• Activity - activity.by:, activity.action:, activity.kind:, activity.field:, activity.to:, activity.from:, activity.after: and activity.before:, alongside the task filters above.
• Projects, Milestones and Docs - each hub's page lists its fields.
• Shared links - who made a link, its name and what it shares, its access and status, and its dates.
• A form's rules - the form's questions as fields.

#Databases

A Database's views take a query written with the table's own column names: each column's name in lower case, with a dash for each space. A table with Status, Due date and Owner columns reads status:Doing due-date:<today owner:me sort:-due-date group:status.

sort: takes a column (- first for descending), group: a column, and - in front of a column excludes. Words without a field search every cell.