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Task relations

A task relates to another task with an entry on its 🪢 **LINKS:** line. The reverse 🪢 **LINKED FROM:** line is generated output: reconcile rebuilds it from other tasks' LINKS lines, so edit the source side and let the mirror converge. Relations never block, promote, consume, schedule, stamp, or route anything.

Both rows render as live chips in Live Preview and Reading view from the relation index (api.relationIndex), never the stored mirror:

  • Labels show as muted small-caps pills on the arrow side: ‹label› → (chip) on LINKS, and the inverse phrase (merged into reads merged from) on LINKED FROM, otherwise (chip) · ‹label› → this.
  • A stored entry that is no longer live is dashed with the tooltip No longer links here · refreshes on the next reconcile. A live edge missing from the text is appended in canonical order. A target that cannot be resolved is a dashed âš  ^id not found.
  • Three or more closed chips collapse to ✓×N, which expands on click.
  • Closed and archived targets are dimmed and never struck; #hide tasks are muted. Colour carries status, never direction.
  • With nav api.relations v1 present, a trailing ＋ opens the Links / Linked-from stage and a hover × on each live chip removes the link (Unlink ‹name› on LINKS, Remove the link from ‹name› on LINKED FROM). Without it the rows stay navigation-only.
  • The shared toggle-dependency-chips command covers both rows.

Without this plugin, both lines still read as English.

Linking from the Task Card

The Task Card's Links to… row (l, after Blocks…) shows N · <first label> <first target> +K from the owner's LINKS line. Its Linked from… row (⇧L) shows the counted source tasks from the live relation index when ready; its detail stays empty while unavailable. Both actions work on open and closed tasks. Ctrl+Shift+L (command bob-navigation-hotkeys:task-card-links) opens Links to, and Ctrl+Shift+Alt+L (command bob-navigation-hotkeys:task-card-linked-from) opens Linked from. On either relation line, Ctrl+Shift+P opens the owner's matching stage.

The Links stage title reads 🪢 Links · <task> with the subtitle Links to K · searching P tasks · ⇥ to mark several · does not block. CURRENT holds the outgoing links with label pills in authored order, RESULTS holds open tasks, and CLOSED holds closed tasks then done/ archives. ↵ links (or unlinks on CURRENT), ⇧↵ opens the relation field (or relabels on CURRENT), ⇥ marks several, and id-less targets run the block-ID prompt once on apply. The relation field offers suggestions from the live index with a live S — ‹label› → T sentence; an empty field commits a plain link. Same-note writes share one undo entry; cross-note mirrors follow best-effort with a · 🪢 LINKED FROM not updated suffix when they cannot.

Linked from lists incoming sources in CURRENT from api.relationIndex, or from a generation-guarded vault scan while that index is unavailable. Sources of every task status count, including Next [*] and Blocked [?]. Its RESULTS are editable source tasks that can link here; Enter applies or removes the selected source, and Shift+Enter adds or changes the relation label. Shift+Enter labels the selected source's LINKS line, and the relation field's live sentence reads ‹source› — ‹label› → this. Built-in labels use their inverse phrase in CURRENT. N<Ctrl+Shift+L> applies one Links-to target and label to each of N+1 source tasks; N<Ctrl+Shift+Alt+L> is refused because one target cannot be chosen for a reverse batch. Ctrl+D on Links to removes every outgoing relation and updates generated mirrors; Linked from refuses Ctrl+D because its row is generated. Hand edits to LINKS update LINKED FROM with the same-note undo transaction or checked cross-note mirrors; Ctrl+Z runs the mirror again. Editing LINKED FROM shows the generated-line notice and does not change an edge.

In the relation-label stage, row zero is the typed label (or plain link), so Tab accepts the top visible match while Enter uses the typed value. Arrow keys and Ctrl+N / Ctrl+P move the highlight. Ctrl+D on a label row hides or unhides that label from suggestions and leaves a ghost row for undo; on row zero it toggles one-off for the next relation. Typing | also turns one-off on. Ctrl+H opens or closes the Hidden section. A one-off relation is written first, then bob hides its label; if that hide fails, the relation remains and the notice gives the retry command. Hiding changes suggestions only: existing links and typed use remain unchanged.

Ctrl+R on an existing label opens a separate rename mode. The preview lists the affected notes, LINKS entries, generated mirrors, and done/ history. Obsidian saves the active editor before previewing and refuses to continue when another affected open editor has unsaved text. Apply refreshes the preview and rechecks open editors; if the plan changed, review the new preview before confirming again. A merge requires its own confirmation. Bob performs the one-commit rename, including label spans in done/.

The Bob: Relation labels command opens a manager for hiding, unhiding, and renaming labels without starting a link gesture. Hidden labels remain in the manager, including labels with no current links.

The read-only api.relationLabels v1 exposes catalog rows and hidden state on desktop and mobile. Its desktop hide, unhide, and rename methods delegate writes to bob relations; rename(from, to, { dryRun, merge, via }) returns Bob's preview report for dry runs and refreshes the journal mirror after a successful write.

Tested rolling snapshot bob-cli 41afa14 bob-mac-capture 556bb67 bob-plugins af1e691 Built 2026-10-24T22:34:13Z (zensical) build.json