Rogue Agenda

Rogue Agenda is a modern terminal reimagining of the ideas behind Lotus Agenda. It captures information first and lets structure emerge later: enter a plain sentence, then use categories, dates, saved views, notes, priorities, and live filters to see it from different angles.

The interface deliberately recalls Agenda's dense blue-and-gray DOS workspace, including the function-key command strip, while behaving like a current TUI: it resizes fluidly, supports mouse selection and command clicks, understands common keyboard conventions, and stores each document as an ordinary SQLite database with the .agnd extension.

Features

• Free-form items with multiline notes, priority, due dates, done dates, alarms, independent date and numeric category values, recurring schedules, and prerequisites. Completing a recurring item creates its next dated occurrence and carries its alarm and filing forward.
• Hierarchical categories with inherited membership and explicit many-to-many assignment and negative exclusions: an item exists once but can appear in many contexts.
• Automatic filing from category match phrases and natural date phrases such as today, tomorrow, next friday, in 3 days, and ISO dates.
• Live views for all items, tasks, upcoming work, completed work, and a datebook.
• Full-text search plus composable Boolean filters over text, notes, categories, dates, done state, priority, category-scoped numeric values, alarms, recurrence, and relative due windows.
• Agenda-style View Manager and Category Manager screens with editable live view definitions, hierarchy, category kinds, match phrases, and exclusivity.
• Persistent per-view columns, custom headings and widths, numeric aggregates, filtered multi-section layouts, collapsed sections, and view reordering.
• Lotus-style live conditions and persistent actions with match previews, reversible conditional assignments, category-scoped date/numeric ranges and values, assignment removal, completion, structured export, and discard.
• Marking and bulk completion, soft deletion with Trash recovery, sorting, and dependency visibility.
• View-scoped CSV, JSON, Markdown, HTML, and iCalendar export, text/iCalendar import (including standard recurrence rules), autosave, WAL journaling, and transactional SQLite persistence.
• Responsive compact/wide layouts, keyboard navigation, mouse selection, clickable function-key commands, and an in-app help screen.
• Application-wide Preferences plus per-document settings for themes, display and locale conventions, autosave, confirmations, dates, filing, Trash, and backups.
• Document-local Agenda-style macros: literal keystroke playback, brace commands, persistent variables, branches, loops, calls, prompts and menus, AUTOEXEC, key bindings, and a Learn recorder. The responsive macro editor adds syntax highlighting and key capture without sanding away the unusual original language.
• Six complete clean-room presets for account work, study cards, personal planning, recipes, bicycle logs, and people development. Each combines its own categories, views, rules, macros, and original sample records.

Build and run

You need a current stable Rust toolchain and SQLite development libraries.

cargo run -- notes.agnd

If the path has no extension, Rogue Agenda appends .agnd. A new document is initialized with useful categories and saved views. To explore a populated file:

cargo run -- demo.agnd --demo

For a richer example, initialize a new document with one of the six presets:

cargo run -- sales.agnd --preset accounts
cargo run -- learning.agnd --preset study

The available names are accounts, study, planner, recipes, rides, and people. Presets only initialize new document paths and never replace an existing file. See PRESETS.md for the supplied views, rules, macros, and demo content in every workspace.

Install for use from any directory

From the Rogue Agenda source directory, install the release binary under your user-local prefix:

cargo install --path . --root "$HOME/.local"

This places the executable at ~/.local/bin/rogue-agenda. Ensure ~/.local/bin is on your shell's PATH; for Bash or Zsh, add this line to the appropriate startup file (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc) if it is not already there:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

After opening a new shell, Rogue Agenda can be launched from anywhere:

rogue-agenda notes.agnd
rogue-agenda demo.agnd --demo
rogue-agenda week.agnd --preset planner

Noninteractive transfer commands are also available:

cargo run -- notes.agnd --import inbox.txt
cargo run -- notes.agnd --export csv --output notes.csv
cargo run -- notes.agnd --export json --output notes.json
cargo run -- notes.agnd --export markdown --view Tasks --output tasks.md
cargo run -- notes.agnd --export html --view Datebook --output agenda.html
cargo run -- notes.agnd --export ics --output tasks.ics
cargo run -- imported.agnd --import tasks.ics

Development quality gate

Compiler warnings are denied by project configuration. Before accepting any change, install the pinned Antislop release and run the complete gate:

cargo install antislop --version 0.3.0 --locked
./scripts/quality-gate.sh

It requires clean cargo fmt --check output, runs Clippy across every target and feature with -D warnings, rejects Antislop findings, executes all tests, builds warning-free documentation, and produces the release binary. Any finding, warning, formatting difference, test failure, or build failure stops the gate.

Essential keys

Key	Action
Up/Down or j/k	Move between item rows
Left/Right	Move between cells/columns
Insert or n	Add a free-form item
F2 or e	Edit the selected item or bound value cell
F3 or c	Assign categories
F4 or d	Toggle done
F5	Edit the item's note
F6 or p	Edit priority, When, alarm, and recurrence
F7 or Space	Mark for bulk operations
F8 or v	View Manager
F9	Category Manager
F10 or m	Command menu
r	Edit prerequisites for the selected item
/	Search the current view
Ctrl-G	Macro Manager / stop and save a Learn recording
h / l	Previous / next saved view ([ / ] are aliases)
Ctrl-S	Save/checkpoint
? or F1	Help
q	Quit

Inside forms, Tab moves between fields, Space opens a choice popover for predefined settings, Enter accepts, and Esc cancels. Choice popovers support arrow keys, j/k, Enter/Space, and mouse clicks. In the F5 note editor, Enter inserts a line, arrows/Home/End move the cursor, and Ctrl-S saves. Mouse clicks select rows, switch views, and activate the bottom command strip.

Preferences and document settings

Press F10, then p for application-wide Preferences. Rogue Agenda saves these as typed TOML at ~/.config/rogue-agenda/preferences.toml. The screen controls:

• classic, mono, amber, greenscreen, nord, and catppuccin-mocha themes
• function-key command bar and category-rule detail visibility
• carriage-return and item markers
• autosave checkpoint interval and destructive-action confirmations
• ISO, US, European, or long date display and 12/24-hour time
• decimal and thousands separators for legacy unbound numeric displays; bound numeric columns carry their own portable report formatting

Greenscreen, Nord, and Catppuccin Mocha use dedicated selected-row foreground/background pairs with at least 7:1 relative-luminance contrast. Every theme also defines a contrast-checked canvas-heading color for column titles, sections, dates, aggregate rows, and empty-view messages.

The file is created when Preferences are first saved. It can also be edited with a text editor while Rogue Agenda is closed; unknown keys and invalid values are reported instead of silently ignored.

Press F10, then d for settings stored in the current .agnd document. These travel with the document and include its description, backup-on-open, Trash retention (on-demand, on-close, end-of-day, or immediate), completed-item policy, automatic filing, numeric date order, first day of the week, default and named times, and note-editor tab width. this week and next week honor the chosen week boundary; morning, afternoon, and evening honor their configured times, plus whether Markdown/HTML reports include document/view headers and footers.

Enumerated preferences and document settings use choice popovers, so values such as themes, yes/no switches, policies, date formats, and week boundaries cannot be mistyped. Free-form values such as times and marker characters remain text fields.

Use F10, then b to create a consistent sibling backup named document.agnd.bak, or enable backup-on-open. Use F10, then t to empty Trash. Permanent operations request confirmation unless that preference is disabled.

Macros and Learn recording

Press Ctrl-G to open the Macro Manager. Its layout and primary keys follow Agenda 2.0: Insert adds, F2 edits, Enter runs, F7 starts Learn recording, plain a appends a recording, F6 attaches a key, and F4/Delete removes. Clicking a macro selects it. While Learn is active, Rogue Agenda shows a LEARN indicator and records the real keys you use throughout the application; press Ctrl-G anywhere to stop and save. The historical Alt-F3 and Shift-F7 combinations remain aliases when a terminal can transmit them.

The first command names the macro. Everything outside braces is played as literal typing, while entries inside braces represent keys or commands. For example:

{capturetask}
n
{inputtext;What needs doing?;%task}
{type;%task}
{enter}

This opens New Item, asks a question, types the answer into the still-open item editor, and saves it. Newlines and indentation in macro source are for readability and are not played. The language is case-insensitive.

The implementation covers the original command families:

• Keys and highlight control, including repeat counts: {enter;2}, {altf6}, {ctlpgup}, {shftab}, and {selection;setting}.
• Variables and strings: {defstr}, {defint}, {deffloat}, {let}, {clear}, {undef}, {append}, {find}, {length}, {leftstr}, {midstr}, and {rightstr}. Local names begin with %; persistent document globals use %%.
• Control flow: {branch}, {call}, {for}, {goto}, {if}, {ifeq}, {ifkey}, {ifnoteq}, {label}, {onbreak}, {onerror}, {return}, and {quit}.
• Interaction: {alert}, {getkey}, {inputcat}, {inputfile}, {inputtext}, {largebox}, {lotusmenu}, and {rollmenu}.
• Agenda special variables such as #DATE, #TIME, #FILENAME, #VIEWNAME, #HIGHLIGHT_VALUE, #MARK_COUNT, #ARGCOUNT, and #ASCII(nnn).

The DOS screen-pacing directives (DEBUGON/DEBUGOFF, SPEED, and the WINDOWS* commands) are accepted but have no visual effect in the continuously redrawn TUI. #CLIPBOARD is reserved but remains empty until Rogue Agenda gains an application-owned copy/cut buffer.

AUTOEXEC runs automatically when its document opens. Global %% variables are stored in the .agnd database. Ctrl-C interrupts a running macro or invokes its {onbreak} handler. Macro-created prompts and menus support both keyboard and mouse operation.

The editor is a responsive, near-full-screen reinterpretation of Agenda's note- style Macro Editor. Enter adds a line, F5 or Ctrl-S saves, Esc cancels, and Ctrl-V captures the next pressed key as source notation. The same Ctrl-V shortcut captures a key in the F6 binding field. Alt-= remains an optional historical alias. Commands, labels, local/global/special variables, numbers, comments, delimiters, and syntax errors have distinct colors.

Designing live views

Open the View Manager with F8. Press n to create a view, e to edit one, Ctrl-Up/Ctrl-Down to reorder it, or Delete to remove it.

Boolean filters use and, or, not, and parentheses. Available predicates include text~rust, note~budget, category=Work, priority<=2, numeric:Hours>7, numeric:Cost inside 100..500, date:"Review Date" outside 2026-08-01..2026-08-31, done, open, dated, undated, due<=7d, overdue, has-note, alarm, recurring, and nonrecurring. For example:

category=Work and open and (priority<=2 or due<=3d)

Columns use field:width:heading:aggregate, separated by commas. Ordinary fields are item, categories, when, priority, note, done, alarm, recurrence, created, and updated. Category values use numeric[Category] or date[Category]; aggregates are none, sum, avg, count, min, or max. A view may sort by a bound field such as numeric[Hours].

item:55:Action:none,when:25:Due:none,numeric[Cost]:20:Cost:sum

Numeric columns accept optional formatting fields after the aggregate: label:decimals:decimal-separator:thousands:negative:percent:alignment. Decimal separator is dot or comma; thousands is comma, dot, space, or none; negative style is minus, parentheses, or trailing; use percent to add a non-editable % of total companion column.

numeric[Cost]:20:Cost:sum:$:2:dot:comma:parentheses:percent:right

Count counts populated numeric cells, not section rows. Total, Average, Minimum, and Maximum use only the bound category's populated values. Left/Right selects a cell; F2 edits a bound numeric or date value. #HIGHLIGHT_VALUE and #HIGHLIGHT_TYPE follow that cell for macro arithmetic.

Sections use heading|filter, separated by semicolons. Add |collapsed to make a section initially collapsed.

Urgent|priority=1;Upcoming|due<=7d;Someday|undated|collapsed

Automatic category rules

Open the Category Manager with F9, then create or edit a category. In addition to simple match phrases, each category can have a Boolean condition and an action. The form previews how many existing items match before saving. A true condition creates a live conditional assignment to the category being edited; that assignment is withdrawn when the condition becomes false, without removing an explicit assignment. This lifecycle is independent of automatic text filing.

An action fires once when an item enters the category and creates a persistent change. Actions use action:value: assign:Category, exclude:Category, remove:Category, priority:1, numeric:Hours=7.5, date:Review Date=tomorrow, when:tomorrow at 3pm, alarm:tomorrow at 2pm, repeat:weekdays, done:true, export:jsonl|archive.jsonl, or discard:true.

Use F10, then u, for Utilities Execute. It reapplies conditions and actions to the current item, marked items, current section, current view, or whole document. F10, then f, shows circular/non-converging rule conflicts.

Recurring work

Open item properties with F6 and set a recurrence to daily, weekdays, weekly, monthly, yearly, or a rule such as every 2 weeks. The item must have a When date. Marking it done preserves the completed occurrence and creates the next open occurrence. Rogue Agenda shifts its alarm by the same interval and copies its note, priority, recurrence, explicit category assignments, and category-scoped date/numeric values assignments. iCalendar import and export maps these schedules to RRULE.

Design notes

Rogue Agenda is not file-format compatible with Lotus Agenda and uses no Lotus code. It reinterprets the interaction model around items, categories, views, automatic assignment, and information sifting. See PROJECT.md for the research record and detailed implementation matrix.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.