Task Management

Task Management gives agentic models a structured way to plan and track multi-step work in a chat. Instead of keeping an implicit plan in free text, the model can maintain a live task list with explicit statuses.

Why This Matters for Agentic AI

For simple Q&A, a single response is enough. For true agentic workflows (research, debugging, migrations, investigations), models need a reliable execution loop:

1. break down work,
2. execute steps,
3. update progress,
4. adapt the plan.

Task lists make that loop visible to the user and reduce failures caused by skipped or forgotten steps.

How It Works

The model uses two built-in tools to manage the list:

• create_tasks: called once at the start of multi-step work to lay out the full checklist.
• update_task: called after finishing each step, to mark a single task by id as pending, in_progress, completed, or cancelled.

Because the list is stored on the chat itself, both tools need a saved chat. In a temporary chat or a channel there is no chat record to write to, so the tools are not offered to the model at all and it plans in plain text instead.

When these tools are used:

• Tasks are stored at the chat level
• The UI shows progress in-chat (e.g., completed vs total)
• Status changes are reflected in real time

Supported statuses:

• pending
• in_progress
• completed
• cancelled

Enabling It

Task Management is controlled per model in Builtin Tools:

1. Go to Workspace > Models > Edit
2. Ensure Capabilities > Builtin Tools is enabled
3. Under builtin categories, keep Task Management enabled

See Built-in System Tools for tool details.

Best Practices

• Use task lists for requests that need multiple concrete steps
• Keep only one task in in_progress at a time
• Mark tasks completed immediately after finishing
• Cancel stale tasks explicitly instead of leaving them pending

Related Features

• Reasoning & Thinking Models
• Automations
• Tool Development / Built-in Tools