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Deadline Tracking

The problem​

Contract deadlines are scattered across hundreds of documents. Renewal dates, payment due dates, delivery milestones — nobody knows what's coming up next week without manually searching every file.

The solution​

Use deadline: in every document. Query them to see every upcoming deadline across the organization.

Deadlines in documents​

Contracts have renewal dates:

deadline: Contract renewal | date: 2027-03-31 | status: pending
deadline: Payment due | date: 2026-04-15 | status: pending

Projects have milestones:

deadline: Phase 1 complete | date: 2026-06-01 | status: in-progress
deadline: Beta launch | date: 2026-07-15 | status: pending

HR has review cycles:

deadline: Q2 performance reviews | date: 2026-06-30 | status: pending
deadline: Annual compensation review | date: 2026-12-01 | status: pending

Arabic documents use the مهلة alias — same canonical deadline semantics, same queries, and the keyword round-trips exactly as written. Dates are always ISO YYYY-MM-DD:

مهلة: تجديد الرخصة التجارية | date: 2026-09-30 | status: pending
مهلة: سداد دفعة المورد | date: 2026-07-15 | status: pending
مهلة: انتهاء عقد الإيجار | date: 2027-01-31 | status: pending

Query upcoming deadlines​

# All deadlines across the company
dotit query ./company --type deadline --format table
File                              Type      Content                   Date         Status
contracts/acme.it                 deadline  Payment due               2026-04-15   pending
contracts/globaltech.it           deadline  Contract renewal          2027-03-31   pending
contracts/gulf-tech.it            deadline  تجديد الرخصة التجارية      2026-09-30   pending
projects/cloud-migration.it      deadline  Phase 1 complete          2026-06-01   in-progress
hr/reviews/q2.it                  deadline  Q2 performance reviews    2026-06-30   pending

One query spans every language — مهلة blocks index as deadline, so Arabic and English deadlines land in the same table. ISO dates are what make the date comparisons and sorting work.

Natural language​

dotit ask ./company "What deadlines are coming up in April?" --format text

Two deadlines in April 2026:

  1. Payment due for the Acme contract (April 15, pending)
  2. Q1 report submission (April 7, pending)

Filter by status​

# Only pending deadlines
dotit query ./company --type deadline --status pending --format table

# Overdue deadlines
dotit ask ./company "What deadlines are overdue?" --format text

Export for calendar integration​

dotit query ./company --type deadline --format csv > deadlines.csv

Import into Google Calendar, Outlook, or any project management tool.

Proximity color coding​

When deadline: blocks are rendered, they're color-coded by proximity:

Time remainingDisplay
> 30 daysGreen — plenty of time
7–30 daysAmber — approaching
< 7 days (incl. overdue)Red — imminent or past

This applies to both HTML and print rendering.

# Render a document with color-coded deadlines
dotit project.it --html --theme corporate

The pattern​

Same as the Contact Directory — you're not building a deadline tracker as a separate project. You're querying deadlines that already exist in your documents.

Every deadline: in every contract, project plan, and review cycle is automatically tracked. Add the keyword to documents you already write. The tracker builds itself.

Next steps​