#Tasks

Multi-step work needs a plan the model can see and update — and that survives context compaction and restarts. The Tasks capability gives the agent a persistent task list modeled on Claude Code's Tasks API: four built-in tools (TaskCreate / TaskUpdate / TaskGet / TaskList), on-disk storage shared across sessions of the same project, and a per-turn reminder that keeps the current list in front of the model without polluting the transcript.

#Usage

Tasks are on by default — nothing to configure. The default system prompt already teaches the model the workflow: call TaskCreate to capture each step of any 3+ step task, set it in_progress before starting, and completed only when fully done.

To scope a run to a named list, or turn the capability off:

import { createLiteAgent } from "@lite-agent/sdk";
import { anthropic } from "@lite-agent/provider";

const agent = createLiteAgent({
  model: anthropic(),
  modelName: "claude-sonnet-4-6",
  workdir: process.cwd(),
  taskListId: "release-0.4", // which list to use; default "default"
  // tasks: false,           // disable the tools and the reminder entirely
});

query() accepts the same tasks / taskListId options. The list can also be selected with the $LITE_AGENT_TASK_LIST_ID environment variable (precedence: taskListId > env > "default").

#The tools

#How it works

• Persistence — each task is a JSON file under ~/.lite-agent/projects/<hash>/tasks/<listId>/ (written atomically, guarded by a file lock). The list survives compaction and process restarts, and is shared across sessions of the same project — including subagents, so a parent and its children coordinate on one list.
• Per-turn reminder — a middleware re-injects the rendered list as a trailing <system-reminder> into the model request each turn, just before encoding. The reminder is never appended to the transcript or persisted, so the event log stays clean and the model always sees the latest state.
• Dependencies — blockedBy / blocks edges are maintained symmetrically by TaskUpdate, and a DFS cycle check rejects any update that would deadlock the graph.

#Disabling

Set tasks: false to remove all four tools and the reminder middleware:

const agent = createLiteAgent({
  model: anthropic(),
  modelName: "claude-sonnet-4-6",
  workdir: process.cwd(),
  tasks: false,
});

#See also

• System prompt — the task-planning instructions in the default prompt.
• Subagents — children share the project's task list.
• Sessions — persistence and compaction the task list survives.
• Getting started — install and run your first agent.