Claude Task Master

What it does

• parse-prd turns a requirements document into a tagged, dependency-aware task list
• expand breaks complex tasks into subtasks; update regenerates downstream tasks when scope changes
• MCP server (task-master-ai) exposes the whole workflow to Claude Code
• Works with multiple model providers; complexity analysis helps prioritize

When to use it

Long multi-session builds where asking Claude to do the feature loses the plot by message 40 — Task Master keeps scope, order, and dependencies outside the context window so sessions stay focused. Pair with git worktrees for parallel task execution.

Getting started

npm i -g task-master-ai
task-master init

Add as MCP server in .mcp.json:
{ "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "--package", "task-master-ai", "task-master-ai"] }

Then: task-master parse-prd --input=prd.txt

Things to know

License is MIT + Commons Clause — free to use, but you can't sell it as a service. Requires at least one LLM provider API key; task quality inherits PRD quality, so weak PRDs produce confident but wrong tasks.