Managing Tasks via Chat

Now that your PM tool is connected, let's use it. In this lesson, you'll learn the natural language commands for creating, updating, assigning, and closing tasks — all from chat.

No rigid syntax

OpenClaw uses AI to parse your intent. You don't need to memorize exact commands — just write naturally. The examples below show common patterns, but feel free to phrase things your own way.

Creating Tasks

Create a basic task

Send a message like:

Create task: Fix the login page redirect bug

OpenClaw responds:

Created task "Fix the login page redirect bug"
- Project: Startup MVP
- Status: To Do
- Priority: Normal
- Assignee: Unassigned

Create a task with details

You can include priority, assignee, and labels in a single message:

Create task: Design new onboarding flow
Assign to Sarah, high priority, label: design, due Friday

OpenClaw responds:

Created task "Design new onboarding flow"
- Project: Startup MVP
- Status: To Do
- Priority: High
- Assignee: Sarah Chen
- Labels: design
- Due: Friday, Mar 14

Relative dates work

You can say "due Friday", "due next week", "due in 3 days", or "due March 20th". OpenClaw resolves the date automatically.

Create from a conversation

One of the most powerful patterns — turn a discussion into a task:

That bug where users can't reset passwords on mobile —
can you create a task for that? High priority, assign to Mike

OpenClaw extracts the task description from context:

Created task "Password reset not working on mobile"
- Priority: High
- Assignee: Mike Torres

Updating Tasks

Update status

Move "Fix login redirect" to In Progress

Updated "Fix the login page redirect bug"
- Status: To Do → In Progress

Reassign or reprioritize

Reassign the onboarding task to Jake, change priority to urgent

Updated "Design new onboarding flow"
- Assignee: Sarah Chen → Jake Kim
- Priority: High → Urgent

Add comments

Add comment to the login bug: Reproduced on iOS Safari 17.2,
seems related to the session cookie change from last week

Comment added to "Fix the login page redirect bug"

Querying Tasks

You can ask questions about your project in natural language:

What's Sarah working on?

Sarah Chen has 4 active tasks:
1. Design new onboarding flow (High, In Progress)
2. Update brand colors in design system (Normal, To Do)
3. Review landing page mockups (Normal, To Do)
4. Create icon set for notifications (Low, To Do)

Closing Tasks

Mark "Fix login redirect" as done

Completed "Fix the login page redirect bug"
- Status: In Progress → Done
- Completed by: You
- Time in progress: 2 days

You can operate on multiple tasks at once:

Close all tasks labeled "v1-cleanup" in the MVP project

Closed 6 tasks with label "v1-cleanup":
- Remove legacy API endpoints
- Clean up unused CSS classes
- Delete test fixtures from staging
- Archive old migration scripts
- Remove feature flag: dark-mode-beta
- Update README with new setup steps

Use carefully — OpenClaw will ask for confirmation before bulk operations that affect more than 5 tasks.

If your PM tool uses custom fields (e.g., "Story Points" in Jira), you can set them in chat:

Set story points to 5 on the onboarding task

The skill adapts to your PM tool's custom configuration. Run openclaw skills info project-management to see what fields are available.

Checkpoint

Knowledge Check

How do you create a task with a specific assignee and priority?

You should now be comfortable with:

Creating tasks with natural language (title, assignee, priority, due date)
Updating task status, assignments, and adding comments
Querying tasks by person, status, or priority
Closing tasks and bulk operations

Next: automated standups and reporting.