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Deadline Management Commands

Commands for managing event deadlines with automatic date handling and visual urgency indicators.

ddl add​

Add a new deadline or update an existing one.

Syntax​

reminder ddl add "EVENT_NAME" "M.D" [OPTIONS]

Parameters​

ParameterTypeDescription
EVENT_NAMEstringName of the event (quoted if contains spaces)
M.D or MM.DDstringDeadline date in month.day format (e.g., "7.4" or "07.04")

Examples​

# Add basic deadline
reminder ddl add "homework2" "7.4"

# Add deadline with full date
reminder ddl add "project submission" "12.25"

# Add deadline for next year (if date already passed this year)
reminder ddl add "exam" "3.15"

# Update existing deadline
reminder ddl add "homework2" "7.10"

Smart Date Handling​

The system automatically determines the correct year:

  • If the date hasn't occurred yet this year → uses current year
  • If the date has already passed this year → uses next year

Example on November 22, 2025:

# These use 2025 (not yet passed)
reminder ddl add "final exam" "12.15"

# These use 2026 (already passed)
reminder ddl add "spring project" "3.20"

Duplicate Handling​

If you add a deadline with the same event name as an existing one, it updates the date instead of creating a duplicate:

# Initial deadline
reminder ddl add "homework2" "7.4"

# Update date (no duplicate created)
reminder ddl add "homework2" "7.10"

Output​

✅ Deadline 'homework2' added successfully for 2026-07-04!

Or when updating:

✅ Deadline for 'homework2' updated from 2026-07-04 to 2026-07-10

ddl rm​

Remove one or more deadline events.

Syntax​

reminder ddl rm "EVENT_NAME" [EVENT_NAME...] [OPTIONS]

Parameters​

ParameterTypeDescription
EVENT_NAMEstringName of the event to delete (quoted if contains spaces)

Options​

OptionDescription
--forceSkip confirmation prompt (future enhancement)

Examples​

# Remove single deadline
reminder ddl rm "homework2"

# Remove multiple deadlines at once
reminder ddl rm "homework2" "project submission" "exam"

# Remove deadline with spaces in name
reminder ddl rm "final project presentation"

Output​

✅ Deadline 'homework2' deleted successfully!

When deleting multiple deadlines:

✅ 3 sets of deadlines deleted successfully:
   - Deadline 'homework2'
   - Deadline 'project submission'
   - Deadline 'exam'

Error Handling​

If a deadline doesn't exist:

$ reminder ddl rm "nonexistent"
❌ Deadline 'nonexistent' not found

When some deletions fail:

$ reminder ddl rm "homework2" "nonexistent" "exam"
❌ Deadline 'nonexistent' not found
✅ 2 sets of deadlines deleted successfully:
   - Deadline 'homework2'
   - Deadline 'exam'

Best Practices​

  • Always verify the event name by running reminder ddl first
  • Use quotes around event names that contain spaces
  • Delete multiple deadlines in one command for efficiency

ddl​

List all deadlines sorted by date with urgency indicators.

Syntax​

reminder ddl [OPTIONS]

Options​

OptionDescription
-v, --verboseShow additional details (creation time, etc.)
--format FORMATOutput format: table (default), json, csv

Examples​

# Basic deadline list
reminder ddl

# Detailed list with metadata
reminder ddl -v

# JSON output for scripting
reminder ddl --format json

Sample Output​

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Event                 ┃ Deadline      ┃ Days Left  ┃ Status   ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ homework2             │ Jul 04, 2026  │ 2 days     │ 🔴 URGENT│
│ project submission    │ Dec 25, 2025  │ 33 days    │ 🟢 OK    │
│ exam                  │ Mar 15, 2026  │ 113 days   │ 🟢 OK    │
└───────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────┴──────────┘

Total deadlines: 3

Urgency Status Legend​

StatusColorCriteriaDescription
🔴 TODAYRed0 daysDeadline is today
🔴 URGENTRed1-3 daysExtremely urgent
🟡 SOONYellow4-7 daysDue within a week
🟢 OKGreen8+ daysPlenty of time
⚠️ OVERDUERedNegativePast deadline

Filtering and Sorting​

The deadline list is automatically:

  • Sorted by date: Earliest deadlines appear first
  • Color-coded: Visual urgency indicators
  • Calculated: Shows exact days remaining

Storage​

Deadlines are stored in config/ddl.json in the following format:

[
  {
    "event": "homework2",
    "deadline": "2026-07-04",
    "added": "2025-11-22T10:30:00Z"
  }
]

Best Practices​

Date Format Tips​

  • Use simple format: "7.4" instead of "07.04" (both work)
  • Don't include the year - it's calculated automatically
  • Use quotes around the date to avoid shell interpretation

Organization Tips​

  • Use clear, descriptive event names
  • Add deadlines as soon as you learn about them
  • Check reminder ddl regularly (consider adding to your daily routine)
  • Update dates immediately if they change

Integration with Tasks​

Deadlines complement the task system:

  • Use tasks for ongoing work with importance levels
  • Use deadlines for time-sensitive events with fixed dates

Example workflow:

# Add deadline
reminder ddl add "project proposal" "12.15"

# Add related task
reminder add "draft project proposal" 8

# As deadline approaches, increase task importance
reminder add "draft project proposal" 10

Error Handling​

Invalid Date Format​

$ reminder ddl add "test" "2025-07-04"
❌ Error: Date must be in format M.D or MM.DD (e.g., 7.4 or 07.04)

Invalid Month or Day​

$ reminder ddl add "test" "13.40"
❌ Error: Month must be between 1 and 12

Missing Arguments​

$ reminder ddl add "test"
❌ Error: Missing required argument: date
Usage: reminder ddl add "EVENT_NAME" "M.D"

Advanced Usage​

JSON Output for Scripting​

# Get urgent deadlines (JSON)
reminder ddl --format json | jq '.[] | select(.days_left <= 3)'

# Count overdue deadlines
reminder ddl --format json | jq '[.[] | select(.days_left < 0)] | length'

Integration with Calendar Apps​

# Export deadlines to calendar format
reminder ddl --format json | python convert_to_ics.py > deadlines.ics

Automated Reminders​

Add to your shell profile or cron:

# Show deadlines on terminal startup
reminder ddl | grep URGENT

# Daily deadline check (add to crontab)
0 9 * * * reminder ddl | grep -E "URGENT|SOON" && notify-send "Upcoming Deadlines"

Troubleshooting​

Deadlines Not Showing​

  1. Check that config/ddl.json exists
  2. Verify JSON format is valid: cat config/ddl.json | jq
  3. Ensure dates are in ISO format (YYYY-MM-DD) in the file

Wrong Year Calculation​

The year is determined when you add the deadline based on current date:

  • If you add "3.15" on November 22, 2025 → uses 2026 (already passed)
  • To force current year, manually edit config/ddl.json

Permission Issues​

Ensure write access to config directory:

chmod 644 config/ddl.json

Next Steps​