Give sub-tasks a higher urgency

[TaylorFacen]

In many task workflows, sub-tasks need to be completed before the parent task can be completed. Therefore, it would be nice for sub-tasks to have a higher urgency multiplier so that, when sorting by urgency, sub-tasks show before the parent.

[claremacrae]

Hi @TaylorFacen,

Thanks for the suggestion.
There have been a number of different (and conflicting) requests for changes to the urgency calculation, and it's clear we can't satisfy everyone!

So we have a proposal: #1162
Introduce a new customisable score property, allowing any number of user-named algorithms.

It's not currently being worked on, but I recommend up-voting it, and subscribing to it, so you will see when it becomes available.

[jwhco]

So, is there no calculation of urgency for sub-tasks or dependency tasks? There would be many ways to interpret this.

[claremacrae]

Yes, the Urgency calculation is documented here:

https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Advanced/Urgency#How+Urgency+is+Calculated

As you can see, it is calculated per-individual-task.

[jwhco]

Yes, I found that. There is no mention of dependsOn: influencing urgency.

I thought the following query would interpret dependsOn: as blocking.

not done
is blocking
NOT (tags include #WIP)
sort by urgency
LIMIT 25

I use the #WIP to indicate work in progress. Those things I need to finish.

The concept of blocking would be tasks holding other tasks up.

To me those tasks that block are sub-tasks or dependency.

If #WIP is on my plate, the next work to be done would be blocking.

That's assuming I haven't given something a deadline or scheduled work.

In that case, I was expecting tasks that are blocking a high urgency task to be even more urgent.

[claremacrae]

I'm not sure what the question is, but:

I thought the following query would interpret dependsOn: as blocking.

Not necessarily.

Please see: https://publish.obsidian.md/tasks/Getting+Started/Task+Dependencies#Search+concepts

For questions not related to the urgency score calculation itself, feel free to start a new Q&A thread - one per topic. Thanks.