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Proposal: task metadata (description) + aliases/groups for discoverability at scale #277

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Description

@ubugeeei

Problem

As task count grows, discoverability becomes a major UX issue.
just provides aliases and groups; it also has strong listing/help UX. Vite Tasks appears command-centric and does not expose first-class description/alias/group metadata in the task schema (based on the public schema file).

Evidence (primary)

  • Task schema appears centered around command without rich metadata fields.

Ref:

Proposed behavior (Unspecified)

  • Add optional fields:
    • description?: string
    • aliases?: string[]
    • group?: string
  • Display description/group in task listing and error messages.
  • Allow running a task via any alias, with clear conflict handling (unspecified).

Use cases

  • Provide “human intent” descriptions for tasks (deploy, release, verify, etc.)
  • Create short entry points via aliases
  • Organize tasks into groups (lint/test/build/release) for large monorepos

Backward compatibility

  • Purely additive; tasks without metadata behave exactly the same.

Minimal implementation suggestion (MVP)

  • Implement description first and show it in listings/output.
  • Add aliases resolution later, then group sorting/printing.

Prior art

Activity

  1. wan9chi commented on Apr 3, 2026

    @wan9chi
    Member

    Some thoughts on each:

    aliases: Not necessary as a dedicated field. You can define an alias task that just runs the original: "alias": "vp run task". vite-task statically analyzes and expands nested vp run calls, so there's no process spawning overhead.

    description: Useful for the interactive selection list. I'm thinking this could come from JSDoc comments above the task definition rather than a separate field, to keep the schema lean and make it easier to write (no string escapes).

    group: Less useful for now. We want task output to be minimal without distraction. Naming conventions like build:web/build:app already serve this purpose. Grouping might become more relevant when we have a UI.

  2. RobbyRabbitman commented on May 18, 2026

    @RobbyRabbitman

    Descriptions will become handy when ai agents are able to explore the workspace and its tasks.

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