`<task>`

The <task> element is the top-level element for a task topic. Task topics provide the instructions that guide people to perform a task.

Usage information

The OASIS DITA Technical Committee distributes two document-type shells for task topics: general task and strict task.

General task: Has a more relaxed content model. It allows <section> and <steps-informal> inside of the task body; it also allows multiple instances and varying order for the elements that make up the task body.
(Strict) task: Maintains a strict order and cardinality for elements within the <taskbody> content model. The strict task is implemented with a constraint module.

The <task> element is specialized from <topic>. It is defined in the task module.

The following attributes are available on this element: architectural attributes and universal attributes.

For this element, the @id attribute is required.

The following attributes are available on this element: universal attributes and the attributes defined below.

@DITAArchVersion (architectural attributes): Specifies the version of the DITA architecture that is in use. This attribute is in the namespace http://dita.oasis-open.org/architecture/2005/. This attribute is specified in the topic and map modules, and it uses a default value of the current version of DITA. The current default is 2.0.
@id: For this element, the @id attribute is required.
@specializations (architectural attributes): Specifies the attribute-domain specializations that are included in the document-type shell. This attribute is set as a default within the document-type shell. The value varies depending on what domains are integrated into the document-type shell. For example, a grammar file that includes the specialized attributes @audience, @deliveryTarget, and @newBaseAtt would set the value to @props/audience @props/deliveryTarget @base/newBaseAtt.
@xmlns:ditaarch (architectural attributes): Declares the default DITA namespace. This namespace is declared as such in the RNG modules for <topic> and <map>, but it is specified as an attribute in the equivalent DTD-based modules. The value is fixed to http://dita.oasis-open.org/architecture/2005/.

This section is non-normative.

The following code sample shows that <task> is the topic-level element for a task topic:

<task id="learn-dita">
  <title>Learning DITA</title>
  <!-- ... -->
</tas k>