mako10k/perttool

perttool

perttool is a local command-line tool for keeping PERT/CPM plans in reviewable text files. It validates plans, calculates precedence and resource-constrained schedules, recommends the next task, and previews every change before writing it.

The recommended npm latest release is 0.10.5; npm beta is 0.11.1 with Grammar 9 and CLI Contract 10 for the Work-centered Planning Pool. Both require Node.js 22 or later. Exact 0.10.6 remains the compatible Grammar 8 and CLI Contract 9 rollback pin that includes the Issue #36 correction.

Install

Install the current release for your user-managed Node.js environment:

npm install --global perttool@latest
perttool --version

Run it without installing:

npx --yes --package=perttool@latest -- perttool --version
npx --yes --package=perttool@latest -- perttool document check PLAN.pert

Use an exact version such as perttool@0.11.1 when reproducibility matters. See CHANGELOG.md and the release records for older releases and rollback pins.

Create your first plan

You can author the current canonical structure directly:

project EXAMPLE:
  version 9
  title "Example plan"
  as_of 2026-08-21
  duration_unit point
  velocity 1p/1d
  finish DONE

milestone NOW:
  title "Current frontier"
  state reached

title "Work completed"

task WORK NOW - DONE: title "Do the work" duration 1p status planned

Save it as `PLAN.pert`, then validate and canonically format it:

perttool document check PLAN.pert perttool document format PLAN.pert --diff

Alternatively, `project init` can create the smallest valid starter file:

perttool project init EXAMPLE \ --title "Example plan" \ --initial-milestone NOW \ --initial-milestone-title "Current frontier" \ --finish NOW \ --out PLAN.pert