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If you set watch: true on a task, it will only run in watch mode when invoked directly from the CLI via task <task-name>. If called from another task (directly or as a dependency), it will not run in watch mode. Watch mode is designed for interactive use, not automated pipelines.
Watch tasks automatically re-run when files change. This is particularly useful for development workflows where you want to rebuild or recompile your code whenever a file is modified. There are two ways to enable watch mode:
  • --watch or -w flag on the command line
  • watch: true field in the Taskfile
The default watch interval is 100 milliseconds. You can change it by setting interval at the root of the Taskfile or passing --interval on the command line.
Taskfile.yaml
version: '3'
interval: 200ms
tasks:
  dev:
    watch: true
    sources:
      - 'test.txt'
      - '**/*.py'
    cmds:
      - echo "File changed, running task..."
      - echo "Rebuilding project..."

# Enable watch mode from the CLI
task --watch dev
# or
task -w dev

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