Tasks
A task is the basic unit of tracked work in Sharkly. It belongs to one Organization, one Space, and one task type owned by that Space.
Use a task when work needs a clear outcome, current state, responsible person or execution assignee, and a durable record of decisions and results.
What a task contains
A task can include:
- Title and description for the goal, context, constraints, and acceptance criteria.
- Space for its work boundary and identifier prefix.
- Task type for its custom fields and Workflow.
- Status selected from that task type's Workflow.
- Priority, start date, due date, and optional estimate.
- Human assignees for the people responsible for the task. A Space can allow one person or several people.
- Execution assignee for the Agent or Crew that runs work on the task.
- Project for an optional Organization-level goal grouping.
- Sprint for an optional Space time box.
- Labels for lightweight classification.
- Custom fields bound to the task type.
- Comments, activity, and execution history for collaboration and traceability.
- Sub-tasks and Linked items for hierarchy and cross-task context.
Write a task that can be acted on
A useful title names the outcome rather than the topic. The description should add the information a new person or Agent would need to proceed:
- Why the work matters.
- What is in and out of scope.
- Relevant files, links, examples, or observed behavior.
- Constraints and decisions already made.
- How completion will be reviewed.
The description can start small and be refined as the task is investigated.
Copy an image from a task description
Open the image preview in a task description and select Copy image to paste it into another application that accepts images.
If copying is unavailable or fails, use the preview's download action to save the image instead.
Human ownership and Agent execution
Sharkly separates human responsibility from Agent execution:
- Assign a task to one person, or to several people when the Space allows multiple assignees. Everyone in that set is equivalent; there is no primary owner.
- Assign an Agent or Crew to execute the work. That execution slot stays single-select and is not part of the people set.
A task can have people assigned and an Agent or Crew assigned at the same time. Changing the people set does not change the execution assignee, and assigning an Agent or Crew does not replace the people.
Task detail also has Quick chats: saved named prompts with an Agent or Crew that run in a split task + chat view with the current task as context. See Chat with an Agent.
Task types, custom fields, and Workflows
The task type determines which custom fields appear and which statuses are valid for explicit status changes.
Task types are Space-owned. Custom field definitions and task status definitions are Organization-scoped and reusable. A Space task type binds the custom fields it needs and owns a bounded Workflow containing its allowed statuses.
Changing a task type can remove values for fields that are not bound to the new type. Review the confirmation carefully before changing type on an existing task.
Status and Agent execution
Status categories carry system meaning in addition to the visible status name.
- Backlog is a parking state. Creating a task or assigning an Agent or Crew while it is in this category does not start execution.
- Moving a task with an Agent or Crew out of Backlog can start execution when the assigned Agent or Crew is ready.
- Completed marks the task as terminal but does not cancel an execution that is already running.
- Canceled and Duplicate are terminal categories that stop active execution started for the task.
Task lifecycle status is separate from Agent working state. A task can remain In Progress while the Agent is working, waiting for a human reply, waiting for review, or reporting an error.
Comments, Activity, and execution history
Comments are the durable conversation on a task. Use them to provide new context, answer questions, record review results, and continue work with the assigned Agent or Crew.
Activity records task changes such as status, priority, assignee, and dates. Agent execution traces and run history provide additional detail about Agent work.
When a person comments on a task with a ready Agent execution assignee, the comment can enqueue another Agent run. On a Crew-assigned task, an eligible comment can start the Crew leader. The execution assignee is the source of truth for which Agent or Crew participates in that task conversation.
Projects and Sprints
A task can optionally belong to a Project and a Sprint at the same time:
- A Project groups tasks around an outcome and may span several Spaces.
- A Sprint places a task in a time-boxed plan owned by its Space.
Neither changes the task's Space ownership.
Sub-tasks and Linked items
Use sub-tasks when one task is a part of another. In the standard create and parent-edit flows, the parent must be in the same Space. Sharkly rejects self-parenting and checks the recent ancestor chain for detected cycles.
Use Linked items when two independent tasks are related, blocked, cloned, duplicated, or connected by a custom link type. Linked tasks can be in different Spaces as long as they belong to the same Organization.
Moving a task to another Space
Moving a task changes its Space ownership and displayed identifier. Sharkly also reconciles Space-owned configuration:
- The target Space supplies the task type used after the move.
- Organization-scoped labels can remain.
- Labels owned by another Space are removed.
- The current Organization status is preserved unless the move explicitly supplies a different status.
Review the task after a move, especially its task type, labels, Project context, and Workflow status.
Find and organize tasks
Task pages support filters, sorting, grouping, and several display modes. Common filters include status, assignee, creator, priority, task type, labels, Project, Sprint, and dates.
Save a repeated combination of filters and display settings as a View in the current Space.