Plugin/open tasks

[lubeda]

a sample plugin that searches all note for unticked checkboxes.

It helps finding open task in the vault

[gamosoft]

Thanks for this! I'm going to hold off merging for a bit, but for a good reason.

I've wanted to rework the plugin system for a while and could never quite work out what was actually wrong with it, your PR helped me. on_search isn't read-only by design; run_hook just decides what a hook may change based on whether the argument happens to be named content. Yours is named results, so the in-place trick was the only option you had.

I'm redoing that part now so on_search can properly return a replacement list, and so plugins get handed things like the notes directory instead of having to work them out themselves. I'll let you know here once it's in, and we can rebuild this on top, it should come out quite a bit simpler than what you had to write.

Nice attention to detail, by the way: escaping the label and reusing the existing search-highlight markup were exactly right.

Kind regards.

[lubeda]

Thanks for the praise, but the filter was just my idea — my AI did the rest. I'm looking forward to the plugin system that's coming; I'll suggest a few new features then.

[gamosoft]

Thanks for your patience on this. The plugin system rework I mentioned is merged, along with a new home for community plugins, so this is unblocked. It's all on main but not released yet — no tag, no new image — which makes this a good moment to shake it out.

Good news first: I ran your plugin against the reworked system without changing a line and it works. The in-place results[:] = replacement swap still does exactly what you expect.

Please rebase onto latest main before anything else. documentation/PLUGINS.md has moved under you and will conflict, which the first item below resolves.

What to undo

Drop your documentation/PLUGINS.md changes entirely. Both the table row and the "Advanced Example / The on_search trick" section. The mechanics they describe are no longer true: on_search return values are propagated now, so the in-place trick isn't needed — return your list and it's used. "You cannot control ordering" is also obsolete; core only re-sorts by path when no plugin replaced the results, so if you return your own list your order survives. For a task inbox that's probably worth taking advantage of.

Drop the CLAUDE.md line from .gitignore. Unrelated to the feature — that one belongs in your global gitignore.

What to add

Move the plugin to plugins/contrib/open_tasks.py. That's a new folder for community plugins. The loader only globs plugins/*.py, so anything in the subfolder ships with the project but never loads — people install it by copying it up one level. @task quietly taking over the search box is a great feature for the people who want it and a surprise for everyone else, so I'd rather it be opt-in than on in every deployment. The code doesn't change, just the path.

Document it in the module docstring instead of in PLUGINS.md. That's what keeps two plugin PRs from colliding on the same file, and it means your plugin travels with its own documentation. Format is in plugins/contrib/README.md:

"""
Open Tasks
Turns the search box into a task inbox.

Trigger: search for @task or @tasks
Install: cp plugins/contrib/open_tasks.py plugins/
Author:  @your-handle
Caveats: ...
"""

Please carry over what counts as an open task, the fact that fenced code blocks are skipped, and the note about escaping note content that lands in context. That last one was a good catch and I don't want it lost.

Fix the frontmatter bug. Frontmatter is scanned like body text, so a - [ ]-shaped line inside the leading --- block counts as an open task and drags the note into @task results. Skipping that block before scanning fixes it.

Reconcile the match limit. MAX_MATCHES_PER_NOTE = 1, but your docs said each result shows "up to three of its open tasks". Either is fine, they just need to agree.

Optional, now that it exists

If your plugin defines setup(ctx) you get ctx.notes_dir, which lets _resolve_notes_dir() go away entirely — it currently re-implements the app's config parsing and will drift the moment that changes. ctx.logger is there too if you'd rather not wire up your own.

Please test the install path

You'd be the first person through this folder, so I'd like to know whether it actually works before it's set in stone. Running against main (not the published image, which predates all of this):

1. Confirm the plugin does not load while it sits in plugins/contrib/ — it shouldn't appear in Settings → Plugins at all.
2. cp plugins/contrib/open_tasks.py plugins/, restart, and confirm it appears and @task works.
3. Delete it from plugins/, restart, and confirm search goes back to normal.

If you run under Docker, plugins/contrib/README.md has a section on the mount shadowing the bundled folder — tell me if those instructions hold up. The curl recipe there won't work for your plugin until this merges, so just use your local copy.

Happy to merge with the undo/add items done and pick up the rest myself if you'd rather stop there.