Statuses

Organize conversations into workflow states

Statuses help you organize conversations into workflow states. Every conversation has a status that indicates where it is in your workflow - from initial ideas to completed tasks.

How Statuses Work#

Statuses are organized into two categories:

When you create a new conversation, it’s assigned the default status (typically “Todo”). As you work through conversations, you can move them through different statuses until they’re complete.

Default Statuses#

xiantong ships with five default statuses:

Status Types#

Statuses have different levels of editability, controlled by isFixed and isDefault flags in the configuration:

Fixed statuses (isFixed: true)

Cannot be deleted or renamed. These are essential workflow states: todo, done, and cancelled. You can still change their color and icon. Fixed statuses have isFixed: true in the config.

Default statuses (isDefault: true)

Ship with the app and can be modified (color, icon, label) but not deleted. backlog and needs-review are default statuses with isDefault: true.

Custom statuses

Statuses you create (neither isFixed nor isDefault). Fully editable and can be deleted when no longer needed.

Workspace-Level Configuration#

Statuses are configured per workspace. Each workspace can have its own set of custom statuses tailored to that workspace’s workflow. Configuration is stored at:

~/.xiantong/workspaces/{workspace-id}/statuses/config.json

Icons for statuses are stored in:

~/.xiantong/workspaces/{workspace-id}/statuses/icons/

Changing a Conversation’s Status#

You can change a conversation’s status at any time using the status menu or keyboard shortcuts. Moving a conversation to a closed status (Done or Cancelled) archives it, while moving it to an open status keeps it in your inbox.

Moving conversations between open statuses doesn’t affect their content or history - only their organizational state changes.