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Generalbendrucker

things:triage

Triage and prioritize the Things Today list. Use when the user wants to review, prioritize, or reorder their Today list.

Stars
13
Source
bendrucker/claude
Updated
2026-05-31
Slug
bendrucker--claude--triage
View on GitHubRaw SKILL.md

// install — copy + paste into any project

mkdir -p .claude/skills && curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bendrucker/claude/HEAD/plugins/things/skills/triage/SKILL.md -o .claude/skills/triage.md

Drops the SKILL.md into .claude/skills/triage.md. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any agent that loads SKILL.md files from .claude/skills/.

Today List Triage

Group, prioritize, defer, and reorder the Things Today list.

Query

Load the things:jxa skill. Run the query to get all Today items as JSON:

/mac:jxa-run Things3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/jxa/query-list.js TMTodayListSource

Pipe the output through the formatter: bun ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/format-output.ts --json

Filter to open items.

Repeating Task Detection

Apply the midnight heuristic: a task is a repeating instance if creationDate ends with T00:00:00 (midnight local time in ISO). Manually created tasks have non-zero hours/minutes/seconds.

Overdue repeating tasks (where dueDate or activationDate is before today) should be batched for a single "Defer all overdue repeating tasks to tomorrow?" prompt. Load the things:url skill for batch defer via URL scheme.

Grouping

Group remaining items by area (primary) and tag (secondary) for batch triage. This is a presentation strategy — read the JSON and form logical groups.

Triage Questions

Per group, use AskUserQuestion:

  • Keep — stays on Today for prioritization
  • Defer — to tomorrow, next week, someday, or a specific date
  • Complete — mark done
  • Drop — move to Someday

Ordering

After triage, propose an order for kept items:

  • Salaried/work items first
  • Deadline items high priority
  • Personal items toward end

Present proposed order for user confirmation.

Reorder

Load the things:url skill. Use the reorder script:

bun ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/reorder.ts [--list today|anytime|someday] <id1> <id2> <id3> ...

Pass IDs in the confirmed priority order.

Batch Operations

Group deferred items by target date. Use Things URL scheme for batch updates. Load things:url for syntax.

Summary

Present final counts:

  • Kept on Today: N
  • Deferred: N (by date)
  • Completed: N
  • Final Today order (numbered list)