sq

sq is a lightweight task-list CLI with structured sources.

It manages tasks in a JSONL file. You can use it directly from the shell or instruct agents to manage them for you.

If you're coming from Beads, see sq vs. Beads for a comparison of the two tools and the trade-offs sq makes in favour of simplicity.

Installation

Homebrew

brew install derekstride/tap/sift-queue

Cargo

cargo install sift-queue

Manual installation

Using a package manager above is recommended so you can easily get updates, but if that is for some reason problematic you can also manually install as follows:

1. Download the latest version for your architecture.
2. Copy the single sq file into your preferred directory (e.g. ~/.bin)
3. Make sure that directory is in your $PATH

Install sq agent skills

You can install this repo as a plugin source to get the sq skills.

Pi

pi install https://github.com/DerekStride/sq

Claude

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/DerekStride/sq
claude plugin install sq

Usage

Queue path

Note

There's no queue! See the FAQ section to see the origin of the name.

By default, sq discovers the nearest existing .sift/issues.jsonl within the current git worktree and otherwise falls back to <cwd>/.sift/issues.jsonl. Outside git repositories, it also falls back to .sift/issues.jsonl in the current directory. You can override it with:

• -q, --queue <PATH>
• SQ_QUEUE_PATH=<PATH>

Commands

• sq add — create a single task
• sq collect — create many tasks from piped stdin
• sq list — list tasks
• sq show <id> — show task details
• sq edit <id> — edit task fields/sources
• sq close <id> — mark task as closed
• sq rm <id> — remove task
• sq prime — output sq workflow context for AI agents

Use sq --help for a full list of options.

List views and dependencies

Dependencies are modeled with blocked_by. An item is considered ready when it is pending and none of its blocker IDs refer to another non-closed item.

Use these views intentionally:

• sq list --ready — actionable work only (pending and unblocked)
• sq list — default view; shows all non-closed items so blocked dependencies and in_progress work remain visible
• sq list --all — include closed items for history/auditing

When choosing the next task to start, prefer sq list --ready.

Examples

# Add task with title, description, priority, and pasted source text
sq add --title "Investigate checkout exception" \
  --description "Review the pasted error report and identify the failing code path" \
  --priority 1 \
  --text "Sentry alert: NoMethodError in Checkout::ApplyDiscount at app/services/checkout/apply_discount.rb:42"

# Add source-less task
sq add --title "Refactor parser" --description "Split command logic"

# Add task with metadata
sq add --title "Triage follow-up" --description "Review support escalation" \
  --metadata '{"pi_tasks":{"escalation":"support"}}'

# Collect one task per file from ripgrep JSON
rg --json -n -C2 'OldApi.call' | sq collect --by-file \
  --title-template "migrate: {{filepath}}" \
  --description "Migrate OldApi.call to NewApi.call"

# Machine-readable output
sq add --title "Summarize support escalation" \
  --description "Emit the created item as JSON for downstream tooling" \
  --text "Customer reports checkout fails when applying a discount code on mobile Safari" --json
sq edit abc --set-status closed --json
rg --json PATTERN | sq collect --by-file --title-template "review: {{filepath}}" \
  --description "Review ripgrep matches" --json

# Merge metadata patch
sq edit abc --merge-metadata '{"pi_tasks":{"type":"bug"},"owner":"derek"}'

# Mark task as closed
sq close abc

sq collect --by-file

sq collect --by-file is the bulk-ingestion command for turning search results into tasks. It reads rg --json output from stdin, groups results by file, and creates one task per file.

rg --json -n -C2 'OldApi.call' | sq collect --by-file \
  --title-template "migrate: {{filepath}}" \
  --description "Migrate OldApi.call to NewApi.call"

Plain-text rg output is not supported. Pass ripgrep context flags like -n, -C2, -A2, -B2 to include line numbers and surrounding context in each created text source.

What each collected task contains

For each file group, sq collect --by-file creates:

1. a file source for the filepath
2. a text source containing the grouped ripgrep match/context lines

Title template variables

The default title template is {{match_count}}:{{filepath}}. Available variables in --title-template:

• {{filepath}} — full grouped file path
• {{filename}} — basename of {{filepath}}
• {{match_count}} — number of ripgrep match events collected for that file

Development

# Build and run
cargo run -- --help

# Run all tests (unit + integration)
cargo test

# Run only integration tests
cargo test --test cli_integration
cargo test --test queue_parity

FAQ

Where's the queue?

The initial design was meant to manage a queue for sift a Human-in-the-loop review tool I was building. That model stopped making sense pretty quickly as the tool evolved. The current tool is better understood as a lightweight task list with structured sources, filtering, and dependency state.

The name stuck because it was short, memorable, and already embedded in the CLI (sq, -q, --queue). Keeping the name does not mean sq is trying to be a literal FIFO queue.