FAQ

General

What is Taskmaster?

Taskmaster is an AI-powered task management system for developers. It breaks down projects into structured tasks, manages dependencies, and integrates with your AI coding assistant to execute work systematically.

Is Taskmaster free?

Yes. Taskmaster is open-source under the MIT License with Commons Clause. You can use it freely for personal and commercial projects. The only restriction is you cannot sell Taskmaster itself as a service.

What AI providers does Taskmaster support?

Taskmaster works with 15+ providers including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Perplexity, xAI, Groq, OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio, and more. See AI Providers for the full list.

Can I use Taskmaster without an API key?

Yes. You can use CLI-based providers like Claude Code (with your subscription) or Gemini CLI (with a free Google account). You can also run fully offline with Ollama or LM Studio. See Local Models.

Setup

Which editors does Taskmaster work with?

Taskmaster integrates with 13+ editors including Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code, Windsurf, Roo, Cline, Zed, Kiro, and more. See Supported Editors.

How do I set up Taskmaster for my editor?

Run tm rules add -y to auto-detect your editor, or tm rules add cursor (replace with your editor) for a specific setup. See Installation.

Can I use Taskmaster in a monorepo?

Yes. Taskmaster auto-detects monorepo setups via lerna.json, nx.json, or turbo.json and adjusts configuration accordingly.

Tasks

What is a PRD?

A PRD (Product Requirements Document) is a text file describing what you want to build. Taskmaster parses it and generates a structured task plan with dependencies. See PRD Creation.

How do I organize work across multiple features?

Use tags. Each tag gets its own independent task list. See Tags.

Can I move tasks between features?

Yes. Use tm move --from=5 --from-tag=backlog --to-tag=feature-1 to move tasks between tags. See Tags.

What is task expansion?

Expansion breaks a high-level task into actionable subtasks. For example, "Build user authentication" might expand into subtasks for OAuth setup, session management, password hashing, etc. The complexity analysis command helps determine how many subtasks each task needs.

Automation

Can Taskmaster run tasks automatically?

Yes. The tm loop command runs tasks in an automated cycle — it picks the next task, implements it, and moves on. See Loop Command.

What are clusters?

Clusters are groups of tasks that can run in parallel. The tm clusters start command launches multiple AI agents to work on independent task groups simultaneously. See Clusters.

Team

Can I collaborate with my team?

Yes. Taskmaster's team mode connects to Hamster for cloud storage, real-time sync, and shared task management. See Team Collaboration.

Do my teammates need API keys?

No. In team mode, Hamster handles all AI inference. Individual team members don't need their own API keys.

Getting Help