tasks.observer: The Work OS Built for Humans and AI Agents
What if your task tracker, CRM, and time tracker all spoke the same language as your AI coworkers — and every row was a file you owned?
tasks.observer is a work operating system where every task, deal, time entry, and audit row is a plain-text Markdown file. It’s built for teams whose colleagues now include AI agents — with native primitives for approval workflows, actor attribution, and full audit trails.
The Problem with Modern Work Platforms
Jira, Linear, Monday, Asana — every modern work platform traps your data in a proprietary cloud database. Export is an afterthought. CRM lives in a separate tool. Time tracking lives in a third. And none of them have a credible answer for AI agents that need to claim a task, propose an approach, wait for approval, and record what they did.
The cost of leaving compounds every year. The cost of stitching tools together never ends.
What tasks.observer Does
A self-hosted work platform that stores tasks, projects, milestones, customers, contacts, deals, time entries, and audit trails as plain-text Markdown — Obsidian-compatible, git-trackable, editable by hand or by application.
- Backend: Express on Node
- Frontend: React + TypeScript
- Surfaces: Kanban, Gantt, calendar, CRM pipeline, time tracking, SSE live feed
- AI-native: approval comments, multi-choice prompts, full audit trails
Three Reasons Enterprises Choose It
1. Your Data Is Files
Every task, customer, and audit entry is a Markdown row with id:: status:: assigned:: properties inside <!-- BEGIN TASKS --> markers. Git-tracked. Grep-able. Readable in any text editor or Obsidian vault.
Lock-in is structurally impossible.
2. Unified Workflow + CRM + Time + AI
One platform covers Kanban, Gantt, time tracking (with billable rates and revenue calc), customers, contacts, deals, and IP-tasks for internal AI work. No integration overhead between disconnected SaaS tools. No per-seat games.
3. AI-Native Primitives
X-Actor-Idheaders attribute every action to a human or agent- Comment-driven approvals: post a comment ending with
**Approve?** - Multi-choice prompts:
<!-- choices: A, B, C --> - Full audit trail of every field change
- Webhook-driven approval flow
Designed from day one for human + agent collaboration.
How It Compares
| Feature | tasks.observer | Linear | Jira | Monday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain-text storage | Yes | No | No | No |
| Built-in CRM | Yes | No | No | Extra |
| Built-in time tracking | Yes | No | Plugin | Paid |
| AI approval workflows | Native | No | No | No |
| Obsidian-compatible | Yes | No | No | No |
| Per-seat pricing | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | No | Server only | No |
Who Buys It
Engineering Orgs With AI Agents on the Board
Visibility into both humans and AI. Sessions claim tasks, propose changes, wait for approval, and post their results back as structured comments. The board reflects reality, not a separate log.
Billable Services Firms
CRM + tasks + time + invoicing in one tool. Per-entity hourly rates. Revenue forecasting that ties to actual delivery, not pipeline guesses.
Privacy-Sensitive Enterprises
Self-hosted. Plain-text. Auditable. No SaaS dependency. Inspectable by your auditor in the same text editor your engineers use.
Better Together: The Observer Suite
tasks.observer is the spine of the suite.
- transmission.observer claims tasks and posts session activity as comments
- tests.observer posts test-run cards to the task that triggered them
- cost.observer uses the same project identity for cost attribution
- shield.observer auto-creates remediation tasks for new critical findings
- state.observer ties git snapshots back to the task that produced them
You don’t need the suite. Run tasks.observer standalone as a Kanban / CRM / time-tracking / project-management platform with zero other Observer components.
Getting Started
- Spin it up — container up on
localhost:3456 - Create an entity — drop in a project and your first task
- Watch git commit — every change is captured in the file tree
- Integrate Obsidian — same files, two surfaces
TL;DR
tasks.observer = a Work OS your data can leave.
Markdown files. Git history. Tasks + CRM + time + AI in one platform. Self-hosted. No per-seat pricing. No lock-in by design.
📞 Contact us to see tasks.observer in your environment.