Getting Started — TR-2 Docs

What is TR-2?

Task Register TR-2 is a markdown-native task manager for macOS and iOS. Your vault is a folder you own; your tasks are plain .md files in that folder; the file system is the source of truth. TR-2 is one editor for those files — a text editor, an AI agent, and git are equals.

TR-2 is the file-native successor to TR-1: where the predecessor was a web app with a database, TR-2 is a native app over a folder of markdown. Same GTD bones; different substrate.

Coming soon. macOS and iOS builds aren’t public yet. Drop your email and we’ll let you know when the first builds go out.

What you get

Capability	How it works
Plain-text storage	One folder, one `.md` file per project, GFM checkboxes for tasks
GTD lists	Inbox, Today, Next, Scheduled, Someday, Done — all derived from tokens in the files
Folders as areas	Move a file in Finder; TR-2 follows
AI-ready	An AI with file-system access can read & edit the same vault you do
Round-trip safe	Bytes the app doesn’t touch are preserved exactly
Sync, your choice	iCloud Drive, Dropbox, a git repo — TR-2 doesn’t care

Set up your vault

Pick a folder. Anywhere on disk, anywhere your sync of choice can see. iCloud Drive, ~/Documents/Tasks, a git repo — all fine.
First launch — TR-2 asks you to point it at the folder. It writes a small .tr2 marker so it can recognise it next time.
Capture something. Press ⌘⇧I from anywhere, type a task, hit return. It lands in inbox.md at the vault root.

That’s the entire setup. There is no account, no database, no sign-in.

A vault in 30 seconds

~/Tasks/                       # vault root — anywhere you like
  .tr2                         # format-version marker
  README.md                    # orientation, never rewritten
  inbox.md                     # quick-capture lives here
  Work/                        # a folder = a GTD area
    website.md                 # a file = a project
    Subarea/
      launch.md
  Personal/
    house.md

A vault is “any folder with a .tr2 marker”. Folders nest; areas nest with them. See Vault Format for the on-disk grammar.

A task in 30 seconds

- [ ] Ship the new homepage @today #marketing due:2026-05-25
- [*] Review the auth PR @next ^a1b2
- [x] Reply to investors done:2026-05-22

Three checkbox states ([ ] open · [*] in progress · [x] done), tokens that map to lists (@today, @next, #tag, due:), and an optional stable ^id. See Vault Format for the full token grammar.

Using the app

TR-2 is keyboard-first.

⌘⇧I — quick capture to inbox
⌘K — jump-to palette (any folder, project, or task)
↑/↓ — move selection
Return — open / edit the selected task
Delete — delete the selected task
⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z — undo / redo (every edit is reversible)

Right-click a task for the full context menu (status, today/next/someday, due date, add tag, move, delete). Select multiple tasks to bring up the bulk action bar.

Connecting AI agents

There’s no API to learn. Any AI with file-system access — Claude Code, Cursor, an MCP filesystem server, a one-off script — can read and edit your vault directly. Tasks are GitHub-flavored markdown checkboxes; the conventions are described in this docs site and in the README.md TR-2 writes into your vault on first run.

See AI Workflows for how to set this up and what to expect.

Next steps

Vault Format — the on-disk format in detail (folders, frontmatter, tokens, ## Done, the round-trip guarantee).
AI Workflows — point your agent at the vault, what it sees, what it can change.
GTD Primer — the methodology TR-2’s lists are shaped around.