Tasks and priority | Overlane Docs

Why an agent needs an active task to change anything, how your requests become tasks, and how P0 to P3 priority decides what is worked next.

In a connected project every change belongs to a task. The task manager is not optional: hooks in Claude Code and Codex enforce it, and your own requests are turned into tasks for you.

An active task is required

A tool that edits files or runs a mutating shell command is refused while the working copy holds no task. The agent sees which commands to run:

overlane task next                  # what to work on, in priority order
overlane task start task-7          # claim an existing task
overlane task new "Fix login redirect"   # or create and claim one

Reading files, searching and every overlane command stay available. At the end of a session, uncommitted changes that no task accounts for block the stop once.

The task files .overlane/state/task.json and .overlane/state/task-policy.json are written only by overlane commands.

Set the priority yourself

The explicit way is deterministic: you or the agent name the priority. This is always right, and nothing guesses.

overlane task new "Hotfix the build" --priority P0 --top
overlane task prioritise task-9 --priority P2

Your requests become tasks

When you ask for work the prompt hook also creates a task before the agent starts. It reads the words you type with keyword rules, so it can guess wrong. Treat it as a convenience, and set the priority explicitly when it matters. The rules:

You write	What happens
“Fix the login redirect”	New task, priority P0, claimed for this session
“Fix the login redirect asap” (also `urgent`, `now`, `first`)	P0 and placed first
“Add a CSV export when you can” (also `later`, `no rush`)	P2, queued behind current work
“Also make the button blue”	Added to the active task as an acceptance criterion
Questions, thanks, slash commands	Nothing

Only what you type is read. Text inside tool output, files or web pages never creates or reprioritises a task.

Priority and rank

Each task has a priority from P0 (most urgent) to P3, and a rank inside its priority. Tasks with no rank are P1. The next task is the best ready or paused one by priority, then rank, then plan order, so milestones and dependencies still apply.

overlane task queue
overlane task prioritise task-9 --priority P0 --top --reason "customer is blocked"

Every change is a ledger event: task.prioritised, task.preempted, task.policy_changed.

Preemption

A new task that outranks the one in progress preempts it. The active task is checkpointed and paused (reason user), the new task is claimed, and the agent is told to switch. When the new task is submitted, overlane task next returns the paused task and overlane task resume task-7 continues it from its checkpoint. Nothing is committed or uploaded on the way.

Relaxing the rule

The requirement is on by default. An agent can relax it for a project, for example a docs-only repository. Relaxing is the task_policy autonomy class: nothing waits under autonomous, another principal approves under supervised, and a person under manual (see Autonomy):

overlane task policy set relaxed --reason "docs-only repository"
overlane task policy set required

A reason is mandatory. The change is a ledger event, and a relaxed project’s context packet lists the policy task_required, so it is never silent.

For agents

The same operations are in the MCP tool task_queue (next, list, prioritise, policy, set_policy).
Run overlane search "task priority" for commands, and see For AI agents.
Command reference: task new, task next, task prioritise, task policy.