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

Projects have milestones:

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

HR has review cycles:

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

Query upcoming deadlines

# All deadlines across the company
intenttext query ./company --type deadline --format table
File                              Type      Content                   Due          Status
contracts/acme.it deadline Payment due 2026-04-15 pending
contracts/globaltech.it deadline Contract renewal 2027-03-31 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

Natural language

intenttext 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
intenttext query ./company --type deadline --status pending --format table

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

Export for calendar integration

intenttext 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 daysYellow — approaching
< 7 daysOrange — imminent
OverdueRed — past due

This applies to both HTML and print rendering.

# Render a document with color-coded deadlines
intenttext 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