Succession Plan

A lightweight, terminal-based productivity and task management tool for planning and tracking succession-related tasks. Add items, set priorities, view daily and weekly overviews, set reminders, and export your data — all from the command line with zero dependencies.

Commands

Data Storage

• Default location: ~/.local/share/succession-plan/
• Override: Set the SUCCESSION_PLAN_DIR environment variable, or XDG_DATA_HOME to customize the base path
• Data file: data.log — plain text, one item per line, prefixed with date
• History file: history.log — timestamped log of every command executed
• All data is stored locally on your machine. No cloud sync, no network calls.

Requirements

• Bash 4+ (uses set -euo pipefail)
• Standard Unix utilities: date, grep, wc, cat
• No external dependencies or API keys required

When to Use

1. Succession planning projects — Track key positions, candidate assessments, and transition milestones as simple task items
2. Daily planning — Use today to see what's on your plate and add to capture new items as they arise throughout the day
3. Priority management — Set priority levels on tasks to keep focus on what matters most during busy transition periods
4. Team handoff tracking — Log knowledge transfer items, training sessions, and handoff checkpoints with reminders
5. Quick task capture in automation — Pipe items into succession-plan add from scripts or cron jobs to build a log of automated events

Examples

# Add a new succession planning item
succession-plan add "Interview candidate for VP Engineering role"

# Add multiple items for a transition roadmap
succession-plan add "Document current processes for Q2 handoff"
succession-plan add "Schedule shadowing sessions with successor"
succession-plan add "Review knowledge base completeness"

# Set priority on a critical item
succession-plan priority "VP Engineering role" high

# Check what's due today
succession-plan today

# View the weekly overview
succession-plan week

# Set a reminder for a follow-up
succession-plan remind "Final candidate review" "next Monday"

# List all tracked items
succession-plan list

# Check statistics
succession-plan stats

# Export data for reporting
succession-plan export > succession-report.txt

# Clear completed items when done
succession-plan clear

How It Works

Succession Plan uses a simple append-only log file (data.log) to store items. Each entry is prefixed with the date it was added. Every command you run is also logged to history.log with a timestamp, giving you full traceability of your planning activities.

The tool follows Unix philosophy: it does one thing well, outputs plain text to stdout, and plays nicely with pipes and redirection.

Tips

• Combine with grep to filter items: succession-plan list | grep "VP"
• Redirect export for backup: succession-plan export > backup-$(date +%F).txt
• Use in CI/CD or cron to auto-log events: echo "Deploy completed" | xargs succession-plan add

Powered by BytesAgain | bytesagain.com | hello@bytesagain.com