The /dr-status Command — Task State at a Glance
How /dr-status surfaces active tasks, backlog counts, and recently completed work in a single read-only call — the starting point for any Datarim session.
Before touching a task, an agent needs to know what is active, what is waiting, and what was just finished. /dr-status answers all three questions without writing a single byte to disk.
It is the recommended first command for any new session: a quick scan to orient before picking up work or starting something new.
What it shows
The output has three sections. The first lists every active task parsed from activeContext.md — each entry shows a task ID, its current status, priority tier, complexity level, and a short title capped at 80 characters. If nothing is active, it says so explicitly.
The second section counts backlog items by status: pending, blocked-pending, and cancelled. No full enumeration — just the numbers, so the operator can gauge load without reading the whole backlog.
The third section lists recently completed tasks. Rather than reading a stored field, /dr-status scans the documentation/archive/ tree sorted by modification time and takes the five most recent entries by default. The --recent N flag raises or lowers that count (1–50).
One concrete example
A session opens after an overnight break. The agent runs /dr-status and sees two active tasks: one in the DO phase and one waiting at QA. The backlog shows seven pending items. Two archive files are listed as recently completed. From that single read, the agent knows exactly where to resume — and which backlog items are next in line.
When multiple tasks are active
With more than one active task, /dr-status expands into Variant B mode: every active task appears in the call-to-action menu, each with the command that continues its current pipeline phase. The operator picks one, and the next command resumes from there. This makes /dr-status the discovery surface for parallel work — the place to see all threads at once before committing to any one of them.
What it never does
The command is strictly read-only. It writes nothing, modifies no state, and never prompts for input. Its job ends the moment the summary is printed. For deeper task inspection, /dr-status loads the full task description lazily — only when the operator explicitly asks for detail, avoiding unnecessary file reads during routine orientation.
Read more about the broader workflow in what Datarim is, or see how to pick up work from any checkpoint with /dr-next.