Conductor Tasks: Task Manager for AI Development

Transform requirements into actionable tasks, generate implementation plans, track progress, and accelerate development – all powered by AI, directly within your workflow.

Conductor Tasks is an intelligent assistant designed for developers. It integrates seamlessly into your editor (via MCP) or works as a standalone CLI tool, leveraging multiple LLMs to streamline your development process from planning to execution.

Key Features

• AI-Powered Task Generation: Instantly parse Product Requirements Documents (PRDs), markdown files, or even unstructured notes into structured, actionable tasks.
• Intelligent Task Expansion & Planning: Automatically break down complex tasks into detailed subtasks and generate step-by-step implementation plans using context-aware AI.
• Powerful CLI for Automation: Leverage a comprehensive command-line interface for scripting, automation, and use outside of an editor.
• Versatile Task Templating: Create new tasks from predefined or custom templates, standardizing common workflows and saving setup time.
• Visual Task Management: Get a clear overview of your project with Kanban boards, dependency trees, and summary dashboards
• Multi-Provider LLM Flexibility: Works out-of-the-box with OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Mistral, Google Gemini, Perplexity, xAI, Azure OpenAI. Easily configure custom/local OpenAI-compatible endpoints (like Ollama or LM Studio). You're not locked into a single provider – choose the best LLM for each specific need.

Why Conductor Tasks?

While many AI-powered task management tools offer valuable assistance, Conductor Tasks is engineered to provide a more comprehensive, flexible, and deeply integrated AI development assistant. Here's how Conductor Tasks stands out:

• True Multi-LLM Architecture for Optimal Results & Cost: Conductor Tasks is built with a foundational multi-LLM strategy, not just as an add-on. It seamlessly integrates with a broad spectrum of providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Mistral, Google Gemini, Perplexity, xAI, Azure OpenAI, OpenRouter) and local/custom endpoints (e.g., Ollama, LM Studio). This empowers you to:

  • Select the best LLM for each specific job (e.g., use a powerful model for initalizing, a faster model for summarization, perplexity for research).
  • Optimize costs by routing tasks to the most economical LLM that can perform the job effectively.
  • Avoid vendor lock-in and adapt to the rapidly evolving LLM landscape.

  Unlike systems that may rely heavily on a single primary LLM or offer limited provider choices, Conductor Tasks offers genuine flexibility and strategic LLM utilization at its core.

• Advanced AI-Driven Development & Task Lifecycle Management: Beyond basic PRD parsing, Conductor Tasks offers a richer suite of AI tools that assist throughout the development lifecycle:

  • Sophisticated Task Expansion & Step Generation: generate-implementation-steps and expand-task provide detailed, actionable plans.
  • AI-Suggested Task Improvements: Use suggest-task-improvements to iteratively refine task definitions and scope.
  • Integrated Research Capabilities: The research-topic command allows AI to gather information directly related to a task, embedding knowledge gathering into your workflow.
  • AI-Assisted Code Modification: Features like generate-diff help in visualizing and creating code changes.

  This provides a more in-depth AI partnership from planning through to aspects of implementation, exceeding the scope of simpler task generation tools.

• Built-in Visual Project Oversight: Gain clearer insights into your project's status and structure with:

  • Kanban Boards: visualize-tasks-kanban for a familiar agile overview.
  • Dependency Trees: visualize-tasks-dependency-tree to understand task relationships.
  • Summary Dashboards: visualize-tasks-dashboard for a high-level statistical view.

  Many task systems require external tools for such visualizations; Conductor Tasks integrates them.

• Versatile Task Templating Engine: Standardize common project setups and repetitive task structures with:

  • list-task-templates, get-task-template, and create-task-from-template.
  • Accelerate project initialization and ensure consistency across similar work items.

  This feature promotes reusability and efficiency, often not found in less comprehensive task systems.

In essence, Conductor Tasks aims to be a more powerful, adaptable, and economically sensible AI co-pilot for the entire development process.

Quick Start

Option 1: Editor Integration (MCP - Recommended)

1. Add the MCP Server Configuration: Add the following to your editor's MCP settings (e.g., mcp.json, settings.json):

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "conductor-tasks": {
         "command": "npx",
         // Ensure conductor-tasks is installed or use the correct path
         "args": ["conductor-tasks", "--serve-mcp"],
         // Set API keys and preferences via environment variables
         "env": {
           "OPENAI_API_KEY": "YOUR_OPENAI_KEY_HERE",
           "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "YOUR_ANTHROPIC_KEY_HERE",
           "GOOGLE_API_KEY": "YOUR_GOOGLE_KEY_HERE",
           // Add other keys (MISTRAL, GROQ, PERPLEXITY, OPENROUTER, XAI, AZURE) as needed
           "DEFAULT_LLM_PROVIDER": "openai" // Or your preferred default
         }
       }
     }
   }
   

2. Enable the MCP Server in your editor.
3. Interact via AI Chat:
   • "Initialize conductor-tasks for my project."
   • "Parse the PRD at 'docs/requirements.md' into tasks."
   • "What's the next task I should work on?"
   • "Help me implement task <ID>."
   • "Generate implementation steps for task <ID>."
   • "Show me the tasks as a kanban board."

Option 2: Standalone Command Line (CLI)

1. Installation:

   # Install globally (recommended for CLI use)
   npm install -g conductor-tasks
   
   # Or use npx without installing globally
   # npx conductor-tasks <command>
   

2. Set Environment Variables: Create a .env file in your project or export variables (e.g., export OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-..."). See Configuration below.
3. Common Commands:

   # Initialize Conductor Tasks in a new or existing project
   conductor-tasks init --projectName "My Awesome App" --projectDescription "Building the future"
   
   # Parse a PRD file and create/update TASKS.md
   conductor-tasks parse-prd ./path/to/your/prd.md --createTasksFile
   
   # List all tasks
   conductor-tasks list
   
   # Get the next suggested task
   conductor-tasks next
   
   # Get details for a specific task
   conductor-tasks get --id <TASK_ID>
   
   # Update a task (e.g., set status to 'in_progress')
   conductor-tasks update --id <TASK_ID> --status in_progress
   
   # Generate detailed implementation steps for a task
   conductor-tasks generate-steps --id <TASK_ID>
   
   # Visualize tasks
   conductor-tasks visualize --kanban
   conductor-tasks visualize --dependency-tree
   

Documentation

For more detailed information, check out the documentation in the docs directory or explore the CLI help (conductor-tasks --help or conductor-tasks <command> --help).

• MCP Configuration Guide (docs/mcp-setup.md) (Detailed guide for MCP-specific environment variables and editor integration)

Configuration

Conductor Tasks uses environment variables for configuration, typically loaded from a .env file in your project root or set via MCP. For a detailed guide on environment variable settings, please see the MCP Configuration Guide.

Required:

• At least one API key for your desired LLM provider(s) (e.g., OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GOOGLE_API_KEY, MISTRAL_API_KEY, GROQ_API_KEY, PERPLEXITY_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, XAI_API_KEY, AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY).

Optional:

• DEFAULT_LLM_PROVIDER: (e.g., openai, anthropic, google) Sets the default provider if multiple keys are present.
• OPENAI_MODEL, ANTHROPIC_MODEL, etc.: Specify default models for each provider.
• OPENAI_BASE_URL: Use a custom OpenAI-compatible endpoint (e.g., for Ollama, LM Studio).
• LOG_LEVEL: (e.g., info, debug) Control logging verbosity.

Example .env file:

# Required Keys (add all you intend to use)
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=ant-...
GOOGLE_API_KEY=AIza...

# Optional Defaults & Customization
DEFAULT_LLM_PROVIDER=openai
OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-4o
ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-3-opus-20240229
# OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1 # Example for local Ollama
LOG_LEVEL=info

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome!

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.