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Normalize Task Records (Doc Only)

When to use

Use this Skill when you need to normalize a list of task records and only written instructions are available. There is no reusable code here — reason through the rules below and produce the output by hand.

Inputs

• A JSON array of task records.
• Each record may contain:
  • inconsistent casing (e.g. "In Progress", "DONE"),
  • surrounding whitespace (e.g. " Fix Login ", " 2 "),
  • mixed status labels (e.g. "wip", "to do", "completed"),
  • optional extra fields (e.g. "assignee").

Expected output

A normalized JSON array where every record and the array as a whole follow the contract in the Procedure section. Output should be compact JSON (no extra spaces).

Procedure

Apply these rules, in order, to produce the result:

1. Trim every string value — remove leading and trailing whitespace.
2. id — trim it and treat it as a string (e.g. " 2 " → "2", number 2 → "2").
3. status — trim, lowercase, then map to a canonical value:
   • todo, to do, pending → todo
   • doing, in progress, wip → doing
   • done, complete, completed → done
   • any other value: keep it lowercased and trimmed (do not invent a mapping).
4. Other fields (e.g. title, assignee) — trim the string value; keep the field.
5. Missing optional fields — do not add them. Only emit keys that were present.
6. Key order within each object — id first, then title, then status, then any remaining keys in alphabetical order.
7. Array order — sort records by id. If every id is an integer, sort numerically (so 2 comes before 10); otherwise sort lexicographically as strings.

Worked example

Input:

[{"id":" 2 ","title":" Fix Login ","status":"In Progress"},
 {"id":"1","title":"Write Tests","status":"complete"}]

Output:

[{"id":"1","title":"Write Tests","status":"done"},{"id":"2","title":"Fix Login","status":"doing"}]

Validation

• The result is a JSON array.
• Each string value has no leading/trailing whitespace.
• Each status is todo, doing, done, or a deliberately unmapped lowercase label.
• Keys appear in the order id, title, status, then alphabetical.
• Records are ordered by id (numeric when all ids are integers).
• No optional fields were invented for records that lacked them.