Querying by creation date (workaround by using start date instead)

[chromdome351]

I would like to filter my tasks by creation date, but I can't figure out how to do so.

Use case: In my daily note I want to use Dataview to show a list of all tasks that were created on or before a particular date.

Step1: On Monday I create a task, in my Daily Note Dataview, this task now appears. On Tuesday and onward that task would appear in the Dataview.
Step2: On Tuesday I create another task, which now appears in the Dataview; however, if I go back to Monday's note, the new task from Tuesday appears now in the Dataview on Monday's note....it didn't exist on Monday so I don't want it to show on Monday's Daily note.

I would like to filter the Dataview of my tasks to only show notes that were created on or before a date to prevent newer tasks from showing up in my older daily notes.

Is this possible?

[claremacrae]

Hi sorry, no it's not possible. But I would like to see if I understand your query properly...

From your scenario, if you are not using the Start date, you could use that to indicate when a Task started being relevant.

I'm not sure I understand that dataview link. If Dataview supports creation date, could you not use its' date format?
Or if it does not support creation date, presumably that would be a feature request for the Dataview plugin?

If you really do want Creation date in Tasks, then there are other requests already, so I recommend searching the discussions for creation or created, and up-voting any that match your scenario.

Re-reading your question, it does sound like it is more a question for dataview than for Tasks? Or am I missing something?

[chromdome351]

Thank you for your response, I hadn't considered using the start date field as a defacto creation date field. I'm very new to all this so I apologize if my questions are not well worded, I'm not sure quite how to ask.

This is the query I have in my todo section of my daily notes (I'm not clear on if this is a "Dataview" query or a different type of query.)

```tasks
not done
path does not include Obsidian
tag does not include #ParkingLot 
sort by priority desc
short mode
```

I would like to add filter that accomplished the below (I know the syntax isn't correct, but the concept is)

 created date <= Note Date

This would prevent newer tasks from appearing in the query results of any daily note I go back to visit

Thanks for your help.

[claremacrae]

Thank you that really helps a lot. So yes, that is a Tasks query and your question is very much in the right place.

[Hope you don't mind, I edited the query to use 4 tick marks around it, so that it can then contain 3 tickmarks.. it's a little-known trick, but does help make samples a bit more readable...]

So for a daily note that represents today - 2022-06-16 - and using the start date to represent task creation date, you could do this:

# 2022-06-16 Thursday

```tasks
not done
path does not include Obsidian
tag does not include #ParkingLot

# This is needed because the 'starts' filter matches tasks with no start date.
# See https://obsidian-tasks-group.github.io/obsidian-tasks/queries/filters/#start-date
has start date

# note that this is the day after the note's date
starts before 2022-06-17

sort by priority desc
short mode
```

When I create these tasks:

- [ ] yesterday 🛫 2022-06-15
- [ ] today 🛫 2022-06-16
- [ ] tomorrow 🛫 2022-06-17

The above query matches these tasks:

[chromdome351]

Thank you, I will play around with this and follow up with any other questions.

[claremacrae]

Thank you, I will play around with this and follow up with any other questions.

Thanks! I'm going to mark this as no action needed for now, and also edit the title so it has a little more context, for others searching for creation date topics...

[claremacrae]

The answer - or workaround using start date as the date you created the task - is in this bit of the reply: #795 (reply in thread).

[st--]

As I somehow found this discussion first, I wanted to point to Tasks (as of 2.0) actually supporting a creation date: #684 (comment) (I had somehow missed it before!)

[claremacrae]

Thank you!