TODO lists

View | Tool Windows | TODO

JetBrains Rider provides an easy way to track tasks and technical debt in your code — code items (comments, string literals, or identifiers) matching a specific pattern can be easily located in the editor as well as in the whole solution using the TODO window.

TODO items are highlighted in the editor and on the error stripe according to their types (Edit, Normal, Question, Warning, Error). Colors are configurable on the Editor | TODO page or Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

TODO patterns

By default, JetBrains Rider provides three predefined patterns for commonly used TODO items of the following types:

A comment containing TODO- Normal
A comment containing BUG- Error
A NotImplementedException in the code - Edit

You can also define your own patterns, so that you could quickly access your specific technical debt items in the TODO window.

Define a custom TODO pattern

Open the Editor | TODO page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.
Click Add on the toolbar.
Specify a regular expression with keywords that you want to detect in comments. For example, (\W|^)(?<TAG>Refactor)(\W|$)(.*).
Optionally, specify whether the pattern is case sensitive.
Select an icon for the pattern to define how matched items will be colored in the editor and in the TODO window.
Click OK to add this pattern to the list.
You can also edit or remove existing patterns.
Click Save in the Settings dialog to apply the modifications and let JetBrains Rider choose where to save them, or save the modifications to a specific settings layer using the Save To list. For more information, see Layer-based settings.

Navigate between TODO items

To navigate between TODO items in the current file, use TODO marks on the error stripe.

Study TODO items in the whole solution

Press Alt+6 or choose View | Tool Windows | TODO in the main menu.
In the TODO window that opens, click or to navigate to the next or previous item.
To locate TODO items in the editor, double-click them, press F4 or choose Jump to Source in the context menu.
Optionally, you can turn on Navigate with Single Click so that items are located in the editor as soon as they get focus in the tool window.
To study the source code of the selected item right in the window, click Preview Source on the toolbar.

Group and filter TODO items

Depending on the size and age of the codebase, there may be lots of TODO items. To concentrate on specific items, you can filter TODO items by scope or by custom filters.

Initial filtering is available with the tabs of the TODO window:

You can use the Current File tab to see just the TODO items in the file active in the editor.
The Default Changelist tab becomes available when you enable VCS integration for the current solution; this tab will list TODO items from files with uncommitted local changes.
In the Scope Based tab, we can use the Scope selector to pick places where Rider should search for TODO items. You can also click ... to create your own scope.

Further filtering is available with custom filters, which let you create groups of TODO patterns that you are interested in.

You can create custom filters either on the Editor | TODO page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S or by clicking on the filter icon in the TODO window and choosing Edit Filters.

Last modified: 16 November 2021