ticket.el

An Emacs package that provides integration with the ticket (tk) command-line ticket tracking tool. It offers a transient command menu for common ticket operations and an interactive tree-based browser for navigating tickets and their dependencies.

Features

• Transient menu — a single entry point (ticket-transient) for creating, listing, and closing tickets.
• Ticket browser — a read-only buffer (*tickets*) that renders tickets as a collapsible dependency tree, sorted by priority with dependency-aware tie-breaking for equal-priority siblings and roots.
• Inline priority editing — raise or lower ticket priority directly from the browser without opening the file.
• Filter modes — show only open/in-progress tickets or all tickets including closed ones.
• Ticket view minor mode — auto-activates on .tickets/*.md files and exposes commands for editing status, type, dependencies, and parent without leaving the buffer.
• Evil mode support — keybindings are also registered in Evil's motion state.

Prerequisites

• Emacs 28 or later (uses transient, which is built-in since Emacs 29; on Emacs 28, install it from MELPA).
• The tk command-line tool installed and available on your PATH as tk.

Installation

package-vc (Emacs 29+)

(package-vc-install "https://github.com/jmmv/ticket.el")

use-package with :vc (Emacs 30+)

(use-package ticket
  :vc (:url "https://github.com/jmmv/ticket.el" :rev :newest))

straight.el

(straight-use-package
  '(ticket :host github :repo "jmmv/ticket.el" :files ("ticket.el")))

Manual

Clone the repository and add its directory to load-path:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/ticket.el")
(require 'ticket)

Doom Emacs

;;; In ~/.doom.d/packages.el
(package! ticket
  :recipe (:host github :repo "jmmv/ticket.el" :files ("ticket.el")))

;;; In ~/.doom.d/config.el
(use-package! ticket
  :config
  (map! :leader :desc "Ticket" "k" #'ticket-transient))

Configuration

ticket.el exposes two user-facing variables:

• ticket-executable controls the path to the tk binary. It defaults to tk on the system PATH.
• ticket-browser-restore-on-ticket-close controls whether killing a ticket buffer opened from *tickets* returns that window to the browser. Defaults to t.

Example overrides:

(setq ticket-executable "/path/to/tk")
(setq ticket-browser-restore-on-ticket-close nil)

Binding the transient menu

Bind ticket-transient to a convenient key. Example using the built-in keymap-global-set:

(keymap-global-set "C-c t" #'ticket-transient)

Usage

Transient menu

Invoke ticket-transient (or whatever key you bound it to) to open the menu:

Key	Action
c	Create a new ticket
b	Browse tickets
C	Close a ticket (completing-read)

Ticket browser keybindings

Inside the *tickets* browser buffer:

Key	Action
RET	Open the ticket file at point
TAB	Expand current node; press again to expand all
S-TAB	Collapse all except current; press again to collapse current
g	Refresh — reload tickets from disk
a	Toggle filter: all tickets / open and in-progress only
<	Increase priority of ticket at point (P0 = highest)
>	Decrease priority of ticket at point
c	Close selected ticket
o	Reopen selected ticket
d	Add dependency to selected ticket
p	Set parent for selected ticket
?	Open browser action/help menu
q	Quit the browser window

The browser action/help menu (?) exposes the same tree navigation, filtering, and priority shortcuts, plus edit actions for the selected ticket:

• Close / reopen.
• Add dependency (opens selection mode in the browser).
• Set parent (opens selection mode in the browser).

Ticket view minor mode

ticket-view-mode is a minor mode that activates automatically whenever you open a file matching .tickets/*.md. It is indicated by the Ticket lighter in the mode line.

The mode adds commands to manipulate the ticket's fields without leaving the buffer:

• Status — close or reopen the ticket (delegates to tk; the buffer is reloaded automatically).
• Type — switch between task and epic by editing the frontmatter field in place.
• Dependency — open the ticket browser in selection mode; press RET on any ticket to record it as a dependency, or q to cancel.
• Parent — open the browser in selection mode; press RET to set the chosen ticket as the parent (written directly to the frontmatter).

Standard Emacs keybindings (C-c k prefix)

Key	Action
C-c k o	Open ticket at point
C-c k s d	Add dependency
C-c k s p	Set parent
C-c k s s c	Close ticket
C-c k s s o	Reopen ticket
C-c k s t t	Set type to task
C-c k s t e	Set type to epic

Evil / transient menu (SPC k)

When ticket-view-mode is active the transient menu (ticket-transient, bound to SPC k in the Doom example) gains a "Current ticket" section:

Key	Action
o	Open ticket at point
s d	Add dependency
s p	Set parent
s s c	Close
s s o	Reopen
s t t	Set type: task
s t e	Set type: epic

The "Current ticket" section is absent when ticket-view-mode is not active (i.e., in non-ticket buffers), so SPC k continues to work unchanged everywhere else. In the *tickets* browser, use ? for the browser-specific menu.

Selection mode in the browser

When ticket-view-set-dep or ticket-view-set-parent opens the browser, the status bar shows Select … (RET to confirm, q to cancel). Pressing RET on a ticket calls the appropriate action and returns focus to the source ticket buffer. Pressing q closes the browser without making any changes.

Ticket file format

Tickets are Markdown files stored under a .tickets/ directory at the project root. Each file has a YAML frontmatter block followed by a Markdown body:

---
id: abc123
status: open
priority: 2
type: task
parent: xyz789
---
# Ticket title

Description goes here.

Fields recognized by ticket.el:

Field	Values	Notes
id	string	Unique ticket identifier
status	open, in_progress, closed	Default: open
priority	integer (0 = highest)	Default: 2
type	task, bug, …	Default: task
parent	another ticket id	Optional; used for tree layout

Display conventions

In the browser, each ticket is shown as:

<indent><symbol> <id>    [P<n>]  [<type>]  <title>

• ▶ — collapsed node with children
• ▼ — expanded node with children
• • — leaf node (no children)
• Tickets are sorted by priority first; for equal-priority root/sibling groups, dependencies are shown before dependents when possible.
• In-progress tickets are highlighted with the warning face.
• Closed tickets are rendered with the shadow face.

Running tests

Run the ERT test suite in batch mode:

emacs -Q --batch -L . -l test-ticket.el -f ert-run-tests-batch-and-exit