things-todo

Things Todo

Use this for Things 3 tasks on Peter's Macs. Prefer things for Things-backed todos; use $reminders only when the user asks for Apple Reminders.

Tool

• CLI: things
• Repo: https://github.com/ossianhempel/things3-cli
• Install:

GOBIN=/opt/homebrew/bin go install github.com/ossianhempel/things3-cli/cmd/things@latest

Auth for update URL operations:

source ~/.profile >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
things auth

THINGS_AUTH_TOKEN should come from ~/.profile or 1Password. Never print it. things update --dry-run must redact it as auth-token=***.

Start

Use JSON for scripted reads and verification:

things tasks --format json --limit 20
things today --format json
things search "query" --format json

Things DB reads may need Full Disk Access for the calling app. Writes should go through Things URL Scheme or AppleScript via things; do not write the SQLite DB directly.

Add

Default: add, then search/read back.

things add "Book LHR-SFO nonstop business flight" --notes "Nonstop only." --when tomorrow --tags travel
things tasks --search "LHR-SFO" --format json

Useful flags:

• --notes "text"
• --when today|tomorrow|evening|anytime|someday|YYYY-MM-DD
• --deadline YYYY-MM-DD
• --list "Project or Area"
• --tags tag1,tag2
• --checklist-item "text" repeatable
• --dry-run to inspect the things:/// URL without mutating.

Update / Delete

Find the UUID first, then mutate by id:

things tasks --search "flight" --format json
things update --id <uuid> "New title" --notes "Updated notes"
things tasks --search "New title" --format json
things delete --id <uuid> --confirm <uuid>
things tasks --search "New title" --format json
things trash --search "New title" --format json

Always read back after writes. Delete moves items to Things Trash; verify normal search is empty and trash search contains the item when cleanup matters.

Conventions

• Turn vague asks into concrete next-action titles.
• Preserve wording when the user clearly wants capture, not rewriting.
• Split unrelated actions into separate to-dos.
• Use Today only when the user implies it; otherwise use Inbox/Anytime defaults.
• Prefer --dry-run before bulk updates/deletes.
• For current date math, run date; do not guess.

Gotchas

• macOS only; remote hosts may show Things.app version as UNKNOWN if the app is absent or not visible there.
• update needs THINGS_AUTH_TOKEN; add does not.
• --tags is plural for add/update; tasks --tag is singular for filtering.
• today JSON may show start: Anytime plus a real start_date; use command membership/read-back, not one field alone, to verify Today placement.