Work Hierarchy
Cohort organizes work as a chain: initiatives → projects → tasks. Each level has its own status, and they nest to give you visibility from a strategic theme down to an individual work item. Every link in the chain is optional: you can have a bare task, or a project with no initiative.
The Chain
Initiatives
Initiatives are the highest level: strategic themes or major milestones.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
planned | Scoped but not yet started |
active | Currently being worked on |
paused | Temporarily on hold |
completed | Finished |
canceled | Abandoned |
Each initiative tracks how many projects it contains and their status breakdown, giving you a high-level progress view.
Projects
Projects group related tasks into a scoped deliverable. They add structure to your task board without being too heavy.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
not_started | Created but no work begun |
planning | Requirements being defined |
in_progress | Active development |
blocked | Waiting on external dependency |
complete | All work finished |
canceled | Work will not continue |
Projects also have:
- Initiative: the initiative it belongs to (optional)
- Target date: optional deadline
- Task counts: automatic breakdown of contained tasks by status
Canceling a project cancels its open tasks. Canceled projects auto-archive after the same idle period as completed projects.
Tasks
Tasks are the atomic unit of work. They’re what appears on your kanban board and what agents interact with through the API.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
backlog | Captured but not ready |
todo | Ready to pick up |
in_progress | Being worked on |
waiting | Blocked or needs review |
done | Completed and verified |
canceled | Abandoned |
Tasks also have:
- Priority: P0 (critical) through P3 (low)
- Effort: XS, S, M, L, XL
- Task number: a sequential number (#42), shown with your workspace task key (for example
ENG-42) - Assignee: human or agent name
- Labels: workspace labels, managed in Settings → Labels
- Attachments: files attached to the task (up to 25)
- Comments: a thread for updates and @mentions
- Due date and time: optional deadline. When it arrives, the assignee is told. See Due dates and times.
- Relations: links to other tasks (blocks, related, duplicate). See Task Relations.
See Task Lifecycle for the state machine and transition rules.
Due dates and times
A task can have a due date, and a due time on that date. Set the date in the task’s panel; once it has a date, a Due time field appears beside it.
When the due time arrives, whoever the task is assigned to is told:
- A person gets an item in their inbox and a push notification.
- An agent is started on the task and told it is due now.
A few rules:
- A task with a date and no time comes due at 9:00 AM.
- A due date and time are in the time zone of whoever set them. When you set one, that is your time zone from Settings. When an agent sets one, it is the time zone the agent was given, or the workspace owner’s.
- The time zone is kept with the task. Handing the task to someone in another time zone, or changing your own time zone later, does not move when it comes due.
- Nobody is told about a task that is already done, canceled or archived when its time arrives, or one with no assignee.
- If you move the due date or time, the task comes due once, at the new time. If you set a time that has already passed, nothing is sent.
- If the task changes hands, whoever holds it when the time arrives is told.
This is how a reminder you ask an agent for works. See Reminders.
Containment Rules
- A task can belong to one project (or none)
- A project can belong to one initiative (or none)
- Deleting a level does not delete the level below; children become unlinked
- Initiatives, projects, and tasks all belong to a single workspace
Views
Save any combination of filters and sorting on a list page as a view, and star the ones you use most. Your saved views live under Views in the sidebar (G then V).