`task 2 start` does not synchronize with timewarrior properly when other task already active

[user202729]

To reproduce:

• install taskwarrior and timewarrior, as well as the hook.
• create 2 tasks with let's say id 1 and 2.
• type task 1 start → task 1 is started
• type task 2 start → according to timewarrior task 1 is stopped and task 2 is started, while according to taskwarrior both tasks are currently active.
• type task 1 start → taskwarrior reports it is already started

Desired behavior: taskwarrior automatically task 1 stop when task 2 start is executed in the situation above.

[djmitche]

Should this be moved to the timewarrior repo, or is there something to suggest this bug is in taskwarrior?

[user202729]

Honestly I don't know about the internal design yet to decide how the modification is best made.

One way I can think of is to make the timewarrior to tell taskwarrior to stop all other tasks when task X start command is issued, but I'm not sure if this can be implemented in a hook.

On the other hand if the purpose is not specifically to track time spent, then it also makes sense to have multiple tasks active at the same time (i.e. having multiple task X start).

[djmitche]

Those sound like considerations for timewarrior, so I'll move this across.

[djmitche]

Oh, lol, I can't -- @lauft maybe you can?

[lauft]

I am transferring this to the task-timewarrior-hook repository.

[lauft]

Timewarrior or the task-timewarrior hook do not have a back channel to Taskwarrior. If there was one, how could they know to stop task 1? One could stop all tasks except 2... Is there a Taskwarrior hook to do this?

The connection between a task and the tracked time is done by tagging the respective intervals according to the tasks description, project, and tags. With the current behavior of the hook each such interval is associated with only one task. One could change that to tracking both tasks by creating an interval with the tags from both tasks when starting task 2, but that could come with some other side effects. Using the task's UUID might be a solution for this, but using those as tag is a bit ugly, so it would require to extend the storage model.

[user202729]

I think one way is to have an option (disabled by default, but if you also use timewarrior then it suggests you to enable it) in taskwarrior settings that when you do task A start then you stop all other tasks.