Organizing Work with Tags

Tags let you split your project into independent workstreams. Each tag gets its own task list, so you can work on feature-auth, feature-payments, and bugfixes without them interfering with each other.

Creating Tags

# Create a new tag
tm add-tag feature-auth

# Create a tag from your current Git branch name
tm add-tag --from-branch feature/auth

Switching Between Tags

# Switch to a tag — all commands now operate on this tag's tasks
tm use-tag feature-auth

# List all tags with progress stats
tm tags

The tm tags output shows task counts, completion percentage, and how many tasks are ready to work on for each tag.

Managing Tags

# Rename a tag
tm rename-tag old-name new-name

# Copy all tasks from one tag to another
tm copy-tag source-tag destination-tag

# Delete a tag
tm delete-tag feature-auth

Moving Tasks Between Tags

When priorities shift, move tasks between workstreams without losing context:

# Move task 5 from backlog to the active feature tag
tm move --from=5 --from-tag=backlog --to-tag=feature-1

# Move a task and pull its dependencies along
tm move --from=5 --from-tag=backlog --to-tag=feature-1 --with-dependencies

# Move multiple tasks at once
tm move --from=5,6,7 --from-tag=backlog --to-tag=feature-1

If a task ID already exists in the destination tag, Taskmaster will suggest how to resolve the conflict.

Filtering Across Tags

See the full picture across all your workstreams:

# List ready tasks across every tag
tm list --ready --all-tags

# List all tags that have work available
tm tags --ready

How Tags Work

Each tag stores its tasks in a separate file (tasks.json for the default tag, tasks_feature-auth.json for named tags). Complexity reports are also tag-specific, so analysis stays relevant to each workstream.

Tags are ideal for:

  • Parallel feature development — Work on multiple features without task ID conflicts
  • Sprint planning — Create a tag per sprint and move tasks in
  • Bug triage — Separate bugs from feature work
  • Team coordination — Different team members work on different tags