Recurring Tasks

Recurring tasks let you compose a day’s work from existing templates. Nothing is created automatically. Opening a document, editing a template, reaching midnight, printing, and launching Stack never prepare a day.

Create a rule

  1. Open Document Settings → Recurrence rules and choose Add rule.
  2. In Properties, give the rule a name. Duplicate, archive, and delete icons stay available in the toolbar below the rule list while you edit any tab.
  3. Open Templates and choose the add icon in the toolbar below the list. Search finds templates in Columns, including archived spaces, with their parent hierarchy. Choose a template to return to your rule.
  4. Add as many templates as you need. Use the reorder handles to drag them or focus a handle and press Up or Down.
  5. Open Recurrence and choose Daily, Weekly, or Monthly, an interval, and a start date. The end date is optional and inclusive. This tab also contains the Upcoming schedule calendar.

You can choose the same template several times. Each occurrence creates its own copies. Nested containers are traversed in order; their tasks, headings, text, and separators are flattened into the calendar. Referencing both a parent template and its nested template repeats the shared content. An overlap warning explains this.

A missing, deleted, trashed, converted, or empty template blocks the entire day. Fix that source or remove it from the rule. Templates in archived spaces remain available.

Choose the winning rule

Active and archived rules remain visible in two equal-height lists. Active rules are evaluated from top to bottom. Only the first active matching rule wins, including when its templates are invalid. There is no fallback to another rule on an error.

Reorder rules with their handles or with Up and Down on a focused handle. In the icon toolbar below the list, Duplicate makes an independent copy of the selected rule and Delete removes it without changing already prepared tasks. Hover or focus an icon to see its label.

For example, place a monthly Last Wednesday rule above a weekly Wednesday rule. The monthly rule can include Opening, Work, Invoices, and Opening again. September 23, 2026 uses the weekly rule; September 30 uses only the monthly rule.

The Upcoming schedule calendar highlights the dates matched by the rule you are editing. Use its arrows to browse earlier or later months. An archived rule has no highlighted dates; start and end dates remain inclusive.

Date rules

  • Daily intervals count from the start date.
  • Weekly intervals use Monday as the week’s anchor, regardless of the calendar’s display preference.
  • Monthly rules support a numbered day, the first through fifth or last occurrence of a weekday, and the last day of the month.
  • Nonexistent dates are skipped: a rule for the 31st does not run on April 30, and a fifth Wednesday does not become the fourth.
  • Dates stay on the civil day you choose. The application’s local day determines whether a date is in the past.
  • Start date and End date use the application’s calendar picker. Start date offers a Today action; choose Never on End date for a rule with no end date.
  • Annual patterns and date exceptions are not supported.

Review and prepare a day

Scheduled tasks appears after the real items in a matching calendar day. Templates start expanded; their headings collapse and expand each sequence. Open template takes you to the source, and Edit rule opens its settings.

Choose Prepare recurring tasks in the preview. The day menu and Command Menu also provide this command. The Command Menu shows the target date, or asks you to choose one when there is no calendar context. Only today and future days can be prepared.

All copies are added after the day’s existing items in a single Undo step. Tasks start unfinished. Copies are ordinary calendar items: edit, reorder, complete, delete, print, or use them in Stack. Later source changes never resynchronize them.

The preview contains no selectable or editable tasks and does not affect progress, printing, or Stack. During an active drag it disappears; its previous expanded or collapsed state returns after drop or cancellation. Long previews are virtualized.

Prepared days, Undo, and saving

A day can be prepared only once per document. Removing every copy, changing the winning rule, or reopening the file does not make the day available again.

Undo removes the whole batch and its prepared marker. Redo restores the original IDs, positions, and contents. It does not evaluate the rules again. Markers for past dates are removed on load, at midnight, and when returning to the app; existing tasks remain.

If a preview changed before activation, Schedule changed. Review the updated preview. asks you to activate again after review.

Preparation succeeds only after the document is saved atomically. If saving fails, copies remain in memory and Changes not saved / Retry save appears. Retry saving without preparing another batch. Close or switch documents only after resolving unsaved changes.

Rules and prepared dates are stored in document format 3. Older files are migrated when opened; older app versions cannot read format 3. A document created from a model starts with no prepared dates.

Prepare and print from a script

See the CLI guide for JSON results, exit codes, and the prepare-and-print script. Preparation alone never prints. Printing alone never prepares tasks.

The script uses the date returned by preparation, so crossing midnight cannot print a different day. A repeated preparation is safe; rerunning the whole script can print the same receipt again.