Using the Project Brief¶

Some projects are a design problem before they are a list of work. "Design the rev C board" starts as a set of things the board has to do — 36 V input, IP54 enclosure, fits the existing footprint — and the team has to argue its way to that list before anyone can plan around it.

The Project Brief is where that argument happens and where it lands. Three columns:

Requirements — what the project has actually committed to. This is the settled spec, and it sits on the left because it is what people open the page to read.
Ideas — the brainstorm. Anything anyone wants to put up.
Dropped — things the team considered and said no to. Keeping them means nobody re-proposes the same idea next month, and it means nothing has to be deleted to get it off the board.

Open it from Brief in the sidebar. It appears only on projects where an admin has switched it on.

Groups: Electrical, Mechanical, Firmware¶

Inside every column, items are filed under groups — the disciplines the project is split across. A new brief starts with Electrical, Mechanical and Firmware; an admin can rename those, delete the ones that don't apply, and add whatever the project actually needs (Optics, Hydraulics, Test) in Project settings.

The groups are what make the Requirements column read like a specification rather than a pile.

Each group has its own colour — a small square beside its heading — and its items are drawn in a lighter shade of the same colour, so a column holding several groups can be read at a glance. A group is the same colour in all three columns. The colours are assigned for you, in the order the groups are listed, and there is nothing to set up: add a group at the end and the existing ones keep their colours, though reordering or removing one may shift the colours of the groups after it.

Adding something¶

At the foot of each group, in Requirements and Ideas, there is an + Add to … box. Type there and press Enter. The item is filed in that column and that group — you never have to pick a group from a menu, because you already did by choosing where to type.

Pasting a list works. Paste several lines and you get one item per line, all in one go. Leading bullets and dashes are stripped, so a list copied out of an email or a spec document arrives clean. This is the fastest way to get an existing set of requirements into TaskTree.

Most of the time you will type into Ideas. If you already know a requirement outright, type it straight into Requirements — it will be numbered immediately.

REQ numbers¶

The moment an item first reaches Requirements, it is given a number: REQ-1, REQ-2, and so on. That number is yours to quote in a design review, a test plan, or an email.

Three things are worth knowing about it:

It never changes. Reordering the board, renaming a group, moving the item between columns — the number stays.
It is never reused. If REQ-7 is deleted, nothing else will ever be REQ-7. A number always points at one thing, for the life of the project.
A demoted item keeps it. Drag REQ-12 back to Ideas or Dropped and it still reads REQ-12, because by then somebody may already have written the number down. If it is later promoted again, it comes back as REQ-12, not as a new number.

The order things appear in¶

Within a group, items with a REQ number are listed by that number — REQ-1, REQ-2, REQ-9, REQ-10 — in all three columns. That is what makes the Requirements column read as a specification.

Items without a number keep the order you put them in and sit below the numbered ones, so a group in Ideas reads as the settled part followed by the open part.

Showing only the groups you care about¶

Above the board there is a switch for each group. Switching one off hides it from all three columns at once; Show all brings everything back.

It only changes what you see — nothing moves, nothing is saved, and nobody else's board changes. While anything is hidden a column heading reads "3 of 6" so the count never disagrees with what is on screen. The filter is part of the page address, so it survives a reload and you can paste the link to someone to show them just the disciplines you are discussing.

Moving things¶

Drag a card between columns to promote an idea, or to drop one. Dragging is also how you order unnumbered items within a column — once an item has a REQ number its number decides where it sits, so dragging it up and down its own column does nothing. Dragging it to another column works as normal.

The item lands where you point. Release over the top half of a card to drop above it, the bottom half to drop below it, and below the last card in a group to put it at the end.

Dragging never changes an item's group. That is deliberate: an item only changes group when it was filed wrongly in the first place, which is rare, so it is a deliberate edit rather than something a stray drag can do. To change a group, click the item and pick a different one from the dropdown.

Editing an item¶

Click a card to open it. You can change its text, change its group, and — in the Dropped column only — delete it permanently.

Clicking away saves it. Click another item, or anywhere else on the board, and your change is kept — there is no way to lose an edit by forgetting to press Save.
Ctrl+Enter saves and closes, the same as the task panel.
Escape abandons the edit.
Delete removes the item permanently, after asking you to confirm.

Because leaving an item saves it, only one item is open at a time: opening another closes the one you were in. Opening an item and closing it without typing anything writes nothing, so clicking through items to read them costs nothing and tells nobody.

Anyone on the project can edit, move or drop any item, not only the one who wrote it. The brief is a shared scratchpad.

Deleting¶

Most of the time you don't want to delete anything. To get something off the board, drag it to Dropped — which keeps it, and which you can always undo by dragging it back. A rejected idea is worth keeping so nobody proposes it again next month.

When you really do want it gone — something typed into the wrong place, or a duplicate — open the item and press Delete. You'll be asked to confirm, and the question names what is about to go.

Two things to know before you do:

It cannot be undone. Deleting is the one action Ctrl+Z will not bring back.
A REQ number dies with its item. Delete REQ-7 and nothing will ever be REQ-7 again, so anything already quoting that number — a review, a test plan — will point at nothing. Dragging to Dropped keeps the number alive; deleting does not.

Permanent deletion is offered only from the Dropped column, and it asks you to confirm. A permanent delete cannot be undone, so it is the one action on this page that Ctrl+Z will not bring back.

Undo¶

Ctrl+Z undoes your last change on this page — a move, an edit, a regroup, an add. Ctrl+Shift+Z re-applies it. Every change also raises a short message with an Undo button, which undoes that change specifically even if you have made another since.

Two limits:

Undo here lasts for as long as the page is open. Reload the page and the history is gone.
Undoing a promotion puts the item back in Ideas but does not take its REQ number away — numbers are permanent (see above).

Seeing other people's changes¶

The board is live. When a colleague adds an idea or moves a card, it appears on your screen without a refresh.

For admins: switching it on¶

In Project settings there is a Project Brief section:

Enable the Project Brief adds the Project Brief tab for everyone on the project. The first time you switch it on, the three default groups are created for you.
Groups is where you rename, reorder, add and remove them.

Two reassurances, because both look riskier than they are:

Switching the brief off hides the tab — it deletes nothing. Turn it back on and everything is exactly as it was, REQ numbers included.
Deleting a group keeps its items. They move to an (ungrouped) section at the top of each column, flagged so somebody can re-file them. You cannot lose a colleague's requirement by tidying a heading.