> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ravenna.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Tasks > Break tickets into tracked subtasks with assignees, completion checkboxes, nested subtasks, and reusable templates for common multi-step workflows. Break down complex tickets into actionable task items with descriptions, assignees, and completion tracking. Create reusable task templates to standardize common workflows and ensure consistency across your team. ## Mental model Tasks are checklist items within a ticket. They break down a ticket's work into discrete, trackable steps with optional assignees and completion status. Tasks are not separate tickets. They live inside a single ticket and share that ticket's context, channel, and permissions. Key distinction: tasks vs child tickets. | Feature | Tasks | Child tickets | | - | - | - | | **Scope** | Checklist items within one ticket | Separate tickets with their own lifecycle | | **Depth** | Up to 3 levels of nesting | Unlimited parent-child hierarchy | | **Assignee** | Multiple assignees per task | One assignee per ticket | | **Status** | Open, completed (checkbox), or cancelled | Full status workflow (Open, In Progress, etc.) | | **Notifications** | Task assignees become ticket followers | Each child ticket has independent notification rules | | **Cross-workspace** | No, tasks exist within one ticket | Yes, parent and child can be in different workspaces | | **Templates** | Task templates for reusable checklists | No template system for child ticket structures | Use tasks for simple checklists where each item is a discrete action step. Use child tickets when each item needs its own status workflow, assignee lifecycle, or cross-team visibility. *** ## Task templates Task templates are workspace-scoped, reusable sets of task items. When imported into a ticket, the template's tasks are copied into the ticket. After import, the tasks are independent of the template. Key behaviors: * Importing a template **replaces** all existing tasks in the ticket. It does not merge or append. * The ticket UI also offers a **Remove Template** action that deletes only the tasks (and their subtasks) added by a given applied template, leaving manually added tasks intact. It appears in the Tasks section header when the ticket has any template-sourced tasks. This is a UI-only action and is not exposed to the agent. * Changes to a template do not affect previously imported tasks. * Templates support the same 3-level nesting as regular tasks. * Templates can have default assignees. When imported, those assignees are automatically added as followers on the ticket. * Templates can be organized into folders for easier management. Folders are purely organizational and do not affect template behavior. Common template patterns: * **Onboarding checklists**: Account provisioning, equipment setup, orientation scheduling. * **Incident response**: Acknowledge, assess, notify, investigate, fix, verify, post-mortem. * **Change management**: Request, review, approve, implement, verify, document. *** ## Tasks in automation Tasks can be created and managed through the Ravenna API and agent tools. When the agent reads a ticket, the response includes the ticket's full task checklist (as a flat list with parent/child relationships to reconstruct nesting) and any task templates that have been applied, so the agent can reason over checklist state directly without a separate lookup. The agent can: * List tasks assigned to the current user across the workspace, with linked ticket context. * Create a task or section header on a ticket, with an optional description, assignees, parent task (for nesting), and position among siblings. * Update a single task item: rename it, change its assignees, switch between task and header, re-nest it under a different parent, reorder it among siblings, or mark it complete or reopened. Updates are partial. Only the fields the agent sends are changed. * Complete or reopen one or more tasks on a ticket in a single update, or apply a task template to a ticket (which replaces the existing checklist, matching the in-app behavior). * Search the workspace's task templates by name or description, and read a specific template's full item list to preview what applying it would add. Task deletion is intentionally not exposed to the agent. To remove tasks, delete them in the ticket UI, use the ticket's **Remove Template** action to clear all tasks that came from a given applied template, or apply a task template, which replaces the current checklist. Workflow actions can also interact with tasks when building automated processes. *** ## Constraints and gotchas * Tasks nest up to 3 levels deep (parent, child, grandchild). Deeper nesting is not supported. * Deleting a parent task deletes all its subtasks. * Tasks cannot be reordered after creation. They display in creation order. * Importing a template replaces all existing tasks in the ticket. This is destructive and cannot be undone. To remove only the tasks that came from a specific applied template while keeping manually added tasks, use the **Remove Template** action in the ticket's Tasks section header instead. * Task templates are workspace-scoped. There is no cross-workspace template sharing. * Assigning a user to a task automatically adds them as a follower on the parent ticket. This cannot be disabled. * Task completion does not trigger ticket status changes. Completing all tasks does not automatically close the ticket. * The reverse direction is governed by the workspace **Close ticket task policy** (Automation settings). When a ticket transitions from a non-terminal status into the **Done** or **Closed** group and the policy is set to **Cancel remaining tasks**, Ravenna prompts the agent and, on confirmation, cancels every open task on the ticket. The default policy leaves tasks open. Moving between two terminal statuses does not re-run the prompt. * Tasks have three states: open, completed, and cancelled. Cancelled tasks are frozen. Description, assignees, and the completion checkbox cannot be changed until the task is restored. Cancelling and restoring are UI row actions on the ticket's task list and are not exposed to the agent. * Tasks do not have their own due dates, priorities, or statuses beyond open, completed, and cancelled. ## Related topics - [Everyday tasks](/documentation/automate/copilot/everyday-tasks.md) - [Set up task templates](/guides/how-to/task-templates.md) - [Workspace settings](/documentation/platform/workspaces/settings.md) - [Portal](/documentation/platform/portal.md) - [Triggers & actions](/documentation/automate/workflows/triggers-actions.md) This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.