Tuido – Efficient Day Planning in your Terminal

Tuido is a simple productivity application that provides a text user interface (TUI) for managing tasks, topics and notes. The Kanban columns of the task view and the fields of the topics can be defined by the user. All data are saved locally – no cloud requirement.

Many productivity apps offer an overwhelming number of features that you often don't actually need. Their complexity might slow you down. Tuido takes a different approach: minimalism. It gives you a clean, reliable space to plan your day as efficiently as possible.

The components are built using the Textual and Rich library, offering a modern terminal UI experience focused on clarity and interactivity.

The purpose of this application is to provide a space for planning and organizing the current day. With its keyboard-driven, minimalist interface, it aims to support an efficient workflow. It is not intended for long-term planning and is meant to complement apps like Notion or OneNote, not replace them.

Use Tuido for everything that is relevant today but can be deleted in the next few days. Tuido aims to help you separate temporary stuff from your personal knowledge management.

Important

This application is under development. It's not yet suitable for a productive environment.

See the Roadmap to gain an insight into the current project status.

Core Features

• Minimalistic text user interface – no overhead
• Full keyboard navigation (but mouse interaction is also supported)
• Manage tasks in a Kanban system with user-defined columns
• Manage topics in a simplified database view with customizable fields
• Quick notes (displayed as text, as rendered Markdown or both)

See Feature Details for a more in-depth overview of the features and use cases.

Installation

Requirements

See pyproject.toml.

Installation via pip

pip install py-tuido

Installation from Source

git clone https://github.com/cgroening/py-tuido.git
cd py-tuido
pip install -e .

Alternatively, tuido can be run without installation, see Section Without Installation.

Usage

tuido

On the first run, Tuido creates the config and data directories and copies the default files into them.

Options:

Flag	Description
-C, --config DIR	Use a custom folder for config.yaml and bindings.yaml
-D, --data-folder DIR	Use a custom folder for tasks.json, topics.json and notes.md

Default paths:

Platform	Config	Data
macOS / Linux	~/.config/tuido/	~/.local/share/tuido/
Windows	%APPDATA%\tuido\	%LOCALAPPDATA%\tuido\

Without Installation

The package can also be run without installation from the project root:

python -m tuido

Feature Details

Tuido is divided into three tabs: Tasks, Topics and Notes.

Task management

The Tasks module helps you organize your day by managing current tasks in a Kanban system. It is designed to mainly focus on what matters today – simple, fast and effective.

Key features:

• Create, edit and delete tasks
• Move tasks between columns
• Change number of columns an their titles
• Tasks are automatically sorted in the following order: priority, start date, end date, title
• Each tasks supports the following fields:
  • Title
  • Priority
  • Start Date
  • Due Date
• All changes are saved automatically

Use cases:

• Plan your day with a few concrete, actionable tasks
• Stay focused by seeing only what’s relevant now
• Clear out finished tasks at the end of the day to keep your board clean

Topic management

The Topics tab provides a structured way to organize information belonging to different topics that is relevant beyond just today – for example ongoing ideas.

While the task view is designed for immediate, short-lived actions, topics offer a more stable, form-based overview that supports medium-term planning and documentation.

Key features:

• Display all topics in a table view for quick navigation
• Show and edit topic details in a dynamic form
• Changes can be saved or discarded

Each topic is made up of fields defined by the user. The layout of the form and table adapts to these custom fields, allowing Tuido to be tailored to your workflow.

Supported field types:

• string – for free text like titles or comments
• date – for scheduling and deadlines
• select – for statuses, categories or priorities

You can define the structure of topics in the config.yaml file. This allows you to model exactly the information you need – and nothing more.

Use cases:

• Keep track of your ongoing projects or areas of responsibility
• Save notes on meetings
• Define and follow up on goals, decisions or documentation

The topic management module helps you maintain clarity and focus by separating ongoing, structured data from the more dynamic daily task view.

Notes

The Notes tab is your space for unstructured, short-lived information – things that don't yet belong in a task or topic, but still matter right now.

Whether it's meeting notes, rough ideas, phone numbers or spontaneous thoughts – this module offers a lightweight way to capture temporary information quickly and without distraction.

Key features:

• A simple text editor built directly into the terminal UI
• Supports both plain text and rendered Markdown
• Toggle between raw, rendered or split view
• All changes are saved automatically – no need to press save

Use cases:

• Jot down ideas or thoughts throughout the day
• Take notes during meetings or calls
• Use Markdown to structure ad-hoc content (e.g. TODO lists, outlines)
• Store temporary content that doesn't need to be kept long-term

Notes are intended to be transient – they're not part of a long-term knowledge base. If something becomes important or structured, move it to a Topic or Task.

Configuration

All configuration lives in two files inside the config directory.

config.yaml

Defines the structure of topics and the Kanban columns for tasks.

fields – each entry is a row in the topic form; a row can contain one or more fields side by side:

fields:
  -
    - name: "topic"          # internal identifier
      caption: "Topic"       # displayed label
      type: "string"         # string | date | select
      table_column_width: 20 # column width in table view; omit to hide
  -
    - name: "status"
      caption: "Status"
      type: "select"
      options: ["Open", "In Progress", "Done"]
      table_column_width: 11
    - name: "created"
      caption: "Created"
      type: "date"
      table_column_width: 10
      input_width: 16        # width of the input widget
      read_only: true
      computed: "created_date"  # auto-filled on create: created_date | edit_date
  -
    - name: "notes"
      caption: "Notes"
      type: "string"
      lines: -1              # number of lines (-1 = fill available space)

task_columns – defines the Kanban columns in display order:

task_columns:
  - name: "inbox"
    caption: "Inbox"
  - name: "today"
    caption: "Today"
  - name: "done"
    caption: "Done"

bindings.yaml

Defines keyboard shortcuts. Bindings are grouped by context: _global, tasks, topics, notes.

_global:
  - key: q
    action: previous_tab
    description: Tab ←       # shown in the footer
    tooltip: Select the previous tab
    show: false              # hide from footer (optional, default: true)

tasks:
  - key: n
    action: new
    description: New
    tooltip: Create a new task

Available actions:

Context	Action	Description
_global	previous_tab, next_tab	Switch between tabs
_global	toggle_dark	Toggle dark/light mode
_global	quit	Quit the app
_global	prev_theme, next_theme	Cycle color themes
tasks	new, edit, delete	Manage tasks
tasks	move_left, move_right	Move task between columns
tasks	select_left_column, select_right_column	Navigate columns
tasks	select_upper_task, select_lower_task	Navigate tasks
topics	new, delete	Manage topics
topics	save, discard	Save or discard edits
topics	focus_table	Focus the topic list
notes	show_textarea	Show text editor only
notes	show_md	Show rendered Markdown only
notes	show_textarea_and_md	Show editor and preview side by side

Roadmap

Version 0.1 – Foundation

• Basic topic management (CRUD)
• Basic task management (CRUD)
• Basic note taking
• Custom keyboard shortcuts via config

Version 0.2 – Usability Enhancements

• Custom sort order for tasks (by priority, date or manual)
• Custom sort order for topics (by specified column or manual)
• Filtering and searching topics
• Filtering and searching tasks

Version 0.3 – CLI and Fast Capture

• tuido add task ...: Quick-add via CLI (add a task to inbox, append to notes, or create a topic without opening the TUI)
• tuido status: Quick-summary (show a summary of today's and tomorrows's tasks in the terminal without opening the TUI)

Version 0.4 – More Field Types & Customization

• More field types for topics: bool, multiselect, number
• New field type markdown with toggle between raw and rendered view

Version 0.5 – Advanced Workflow

• Open text fields in an external editor (e.g. Neovim)
• Add a notes field to tasks with Markdown rendering support
• Task history/changelog
• Duplicate task/topic

Version 0.6 - Smart Fields

• Field validations: define rules for topic fields beyond basic types, such as email format, date ranges or numeric ranges (e.g 1–100)
• More computed field functions (currently: created_date, edit_date) planned addition: sequence_number and user requested functions)
• Field formulas: derive a field's value from other fields using a simple expression (e.g. folder = project_number + "/" + project_name)

Version 0.7 - Polished UI

• Compact mode which removes the inner spacing of input widgets
• Task count per Kanban column

Version 0.8 – Interoperability

• Import and export tasks as CSV
• Import and export topics as CSV
• Export tasks, topics and notes as Markdown file

Possible Future Features

The following features are planned but not yet assigned to a specific version.

• Suggest next task based on priority and due date
• Task recurrence (e.g. daily, weekly tasks)
• Time tracking per task
• Multi-project support with separate configs and data per project
• Undo last change
• Archive for completed tasks
• Date picker widgets
• Bulk operations: actions on multiple tasks at once