Minimal timelines from a simple bullet list in Obsidian.
You write a list, add duration estimate {Days}, and Bullet-time reads it top-to-bottom, chains each task after the one before it, and transforms it into a clean monospace text art timeline.
- Auto-scheduling — siblings chain automatically: each task starts where the previous one ended. Only pin the dates that actually matter.
- Work-day math — schedule in
calendardays orworkdaysmode, which skips weekends. - Duration shorthands — days, weeks, or hours (
3d,2w,4h). - Overtime highlighting — when a project's children run past its planned total, the overflow is flagged in a warning color.
- Nesting — lanes → projects → subtasks, driven purely by list indentation.
- Per-task colors and a nice palette.
- Two entry points — a fenced
```bullet-timecode block, or a plain bullet list tagged with a hidden%% bullet-time %%comment. - Errors render inline — bad input never breaks your note; problems show up in a small box under the timeline.
Install it from_ Settings → Community plugins → Browse by searching for "Bullet-time".
- Download
main.js,manifest.json, andstyles.cssfrom the latest release. - Copy them into your vault at
<vault>/.obsidian/plugins/bullet-time/. - Reload Obsidian, then enable Bullet-time under Settings → Community plugins.
Add a fenced code block with the bullet-time language:
```bullet-time
title: Q3 Launch
mode: workdays
- Design {2w}
- Wireframes {4d}
- Visual design {6d}
- Build {3w} | #98c379
- QA {1w}
- Launch {2026-09-01, 2d}
```The first bullet starts today (unless pinned). Each following sibling starts when the previous one ends. Indented bullets become children of the bullet above them.
Prefer a normal Markdown list? Tag it with a hidden comment as the first item (Reading view only):
- %% bullet-time %% mode:workdays title:Roadmap
- Research {1w}
- Prototype {2w}
- Ship {3d}Placed before the first bullet, one per line, as key: value:
| Key | Values | Description |
|---|---|---|
title |
text | Heading shown above the timeline. |
mode / days |
calendar, workdays |
Count every day, or skip weekends. |
weekstart |
mon, sun |
First day of the week for axis ticks. |
hoursperday |
positive number | Hours in a work day (used to convert Nh durations). |
wide |
— | Break out to full pane width (also usable as a bare flag). |
center |
— | Center the timeline in its block (also usable as a bare flag). |
Lines starting with # are comments.
Each bullet is a task. Its content can carry an optional {...} scheduling group and a trailing | color:
- Label {start, duration} | color
{start, duration}— either part is optional:{2w}is duration-only,{2026-07-01}pins a start,{2026-07-01, 3d}sets both.- Start accepts
today, an ISO dateYYYY-MM-DD, or a relative offset like+5/-2(days from today). - Duration accepts a bare number or
Nd(days),Nw(weeks — 5 work days or 7 calendar days), orNh(hours, converted viahoursperday). Fractions allowed (e.g.1.5d). - Color — any CSS color after a trailing
|(e.g.| #e06c75,| tomato). Unsafe values are ignored.
Tasks with no explicit start chain after their previous sibling. A pinned start runs in parallel from that date.
Configure global defaults under Settings → Bullet-time (any block can override the schedule-related ones via header lines):
- Day model —
calendarorworkdays - Week start, hours per day
- Appearance — cells per day (zoom), font size, month/week ruler toggle
- Palette — lane colors assigned in order when none is specified, plus the overtime color
npm install
npm run dev # esbuild watch mode → rebuilds main.js on save
npm run build # typecheck + minified production build
npm test # headless parser + scheduler checks
npm run deploy # build, then copy into a vault (set BULLETTIME_VAULT)The core is a strict, Obsidian-free pipeline — parse → schedule → layout — so it can be unit-tested headlessly; only the render stage touches the DOM. See CLAUDE.md for a fuller architecture tour.