Task Status Values

How Obsidian stores task status

ListItemCache.task contains the literal character between [ and ] in a checkbox list item. Obsidian does NOT normalize this value.

Markdown	task value	Obsidian interpretation
- regular bullet	undefined	Not a task
- [ ]	" " (space)	Incomplete
- [x]	"x"	Complete
- [X]	"X"	Complete
- [/]	"/"	Complete (any non-space)
- [-]	"-"	Complete (any non-space)
- [>]	">"	Complete (any non-space)
- [!]	"!"	Complete (any non-space)

Obsidian’s binary view

From the official docs¹: “The space character ' ' is interpreted as an incomplete task. Any other character is interpreted as completed task.”

Obsidian only applies strikethrough styling to x and X². All other non-space characters render as “checked” (filled checkbox) without strikethrough.

Obsidian vs Dataview semantics

Concept	Obsidian	Dataview
Checked	Any non-space	Any non-space
Completed/Done	Any non-space	Only x or X

Our getFilesWithCompletedTasks follows Obsidian’s semantics (any non-space = completed). For Dataview-style “only x/X”³, use getFilesWithTaskStatus(["x", "X"]).

Custom status characters

Themes and plugins like obsidian-tasks define custom meanings for status characters:

Character	Common meaning
/	In progress
-	Cancelled
>	Deferred/scheduled
!	Important
?	Question
R	Under review

These are community conventions, not Obsidian standards. The raw character is always available via getFilesWithTaskStatus and getAllTaskStatusesWithFiles.

Footnotes

1. ListItemCache — Obsidian Developer Docs ↩

2. Obsidian’s core CSS targets only [data-task="x"] and [data-task="X"] for strikethrough styling — all other non-space characters render as checked without strikethrough. ↩

3. Dataview markdown-file.ts:248-253 — task status parsing distinguishes checked (any non-space) from completed (only x/X). ↩