AI Task Manager
A native WinUI 3 Windows task manager built for the gap between local no-subscription task apps with no AI and cloud AI task apps with no real Windows-native presence. Manual task CRUD, lists, and recurrence ship first; an opt-in AI assistant for natural-language questions and rescheduling ships as a separate release.
Overview
AI Task Manager is a native Windows desktop task manager split into two releases: v1 is a complete, submittable task manager with task CRUD, lists, recurrence, trash, and Windows toast notifications, no AI at all. v1.1 adds an opt-in 'Ask AI' box for natural-language questions about your tasks, natural-language rescheduling with confirmation and undo, and a daily focus digest, backed by the Gemini Flash free tier. The split keeps AI's Microsoft Store compliance burden (consent screen, opt-out toggle, report-content action) off the first submission.
Why it was built
Competitive research found a real gap: local, no-subscription Windows task apps (Better Task Tracker, Mindwtr, Super Productivity) have no meaningful AI, while AI-native task managers (Todoist, Motion, Sunsama, Akiflow) are all cloud-subscription and treat Windows desktop as an afterthought. The app targets that intersection directly: a fast, native, visually distinct Windows app with manual task management as the reliable core, and AI as an optional layer on top rather than the whole product.
Four Global Views
Open, Completed, Trash, and Today are all global across every list rather than scoped to one, with an additive per-list filter selector layered on top after real usage with 6 lists and ~20 seeded tasks surfaced that gap.
Recurrence-Aware Completion
Completing a non-recurring task marks it done and drops it off the default view; completing a recurring task instead advances its due date to the next occurrence per its recurrence rule and clears the completed flag, rather than creating a new row.
Reminders That Survive a Closed App
Verified empirically with a scheduled-toast spike in Sprint 1: a toast scheduled via ScheduledToastNotification fires even after the app process is fully closed, confirmed via tasklist absence plus an independent PowerShell query of the notification history.
Tech Breakdown
Chosen specifically to be genuinely native on Windows, the exact thing the competitive research found missing from every AI-native task app in the category.
TaskItem.Id is a Guid, not an autoincrement integer, deliberately: integer IDs collide across devices and would make a future sync feature painful to retrofit, even though sync itself is out of scope for v1.
Chosen for v1.1 specifically because it has a usable free tier; the exact model ID and quota numbers came from secondary sources and are flagged in SPEC.md to be re-verified before Sprint 5 ships.
AI triggers a distinct set of Microsoft Store compliance requirements (Policy 10.5.2 disclosure, consent screen, opt-out, report-content action). Isolating it to a second release keeps the first Store submission simple and unblocked.
- 1
Priority indicators had to differ by icon shape as well as color (circle/square/triangle for Low/Medium/High), not color alone, per an explicit accessibility requirement caught before Sprint 4's visual pass rather than after.
- 2
The AI consent screen has to be tested against a database that already has real tasks and private notes in it, not an empty install, because most real users will hit it as a v1-to-v1.1 upgrade with months of notes already stored.
Sprint 4's custom visual design direction still needs a decision (v1 currently uses stock WinUI styling deliberately, by plan), and Sprints 5-7 (Gemini wiring, AI compliance screens, and final v1.1 ship) are not started.
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