I’ve got a workaround that works for my particular needs, perhaps others will find it useful.
Instead of using the built-in recurrence feature which doesn’t trigger “task is added” rules, I used a rule to mimic recurrence by changing the due date:
I have a custom single-select field called “Recurrence” with 4 options (every 2 days, weekly, monthly, quarterly).
When a task is completed in my project, the rule updates the due date accordingly (using the relative due date option) and marks it as incomplete.
It also sets a custom priority field to “waiting”, which is what I was trying to accomplish in the first place (when a recurring task is complete, set the priority of the new task to waiting).
A similar result could be achieved using “Create new task” as the rule action instead of changing the status and due dates. Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, one method may work better than the other.
I’d call this an issue because recurring tasks behave differently from “normal” newly created tasks in terms of rules, which breaks expectations and adds manual work for something that should be fully automatable.
For our team, the main impact is on weekly operational workflows where we rely heavily on rules and custom fields. Here are two examples:
We have weekly recurring to‑dos like “Check incoming payments”. Each time the current task is completed, the next occurrence appears in the “My tasks” inbox as a new task. We tag these with a specific custom field and would like a rule to automatically move the new instance into a later section, so people don’t have to manually triage the same recurring task every week. Because the recurring instance does not trigger the rule, this has to be done by hand over and over again.
We also use recurring tasks for weekly meetings and have a rule that renames the newly created task based on the new date (also based on the value a custom field for weekly meetings). The trigger “task added to project” only fires when the task is completed by an other rule (with setting: allow rule to trigger other rules) – but if someone checks the task manually the automation doesn’t work and we have to correct names and details manually.
I’d like this to be changed so that new instances of a recurring task can trigger rules in the same way as any other newly created task (e.g. “task added to project”, field changes, etc.). That would make recurring tasks first‑class citizens in rule‑based workflows, reduce repetitive manual steps, and keep “My tasks” and meeting tasks clean and correctly structured without workarounds or external automation tools.
