What sets
the finish?
Find the prerequisite tasks that determine your project's shortest possible elapsed duration.
Enter tasks and dependencies. Analyze the timing. Check the critical work before committing to a plan.
Minutes from zero / dependency lower bound
01 / Task worksheet
1–30 tasks · 1–10,000 whole minutes each · at most 100 links. Labels: 1–80 characters. Select tasks that must finish first.
Start with a task, or load the example.
02 / Timing analysis
Analyze to reveal project duration, critical tasks and timing offsets.
No schedule is running. All offsets begin at a hypothetical zero.
Earliest-start timeline
Red + “critical” = zero slack. Charcoal = positive slack. Printed intervals give exact minutes.
| Task / label | Duration | Prerequisites | ES | EF | LS | LF | Slack | Status |
|---|
Dependency links
Complete selectable plain-text report
If saving is blocked, select this text manually. Downloads follow your browser settings.
Read the bound correctly.
Unlimited parallel capacity and accurate fixed durations are assumed. This is a dependency lower-bound analysis, not a feasible staffing schedule or completion promise.
Dependencies are finish-to-start with zero lag. All terminal tasks share a virtual common finish at the maximum earliest finish, including disconnected branches. Critical tasks have zero total slack; highlighted critical links are tight dependencies between critical tasks. No path lists are enumerated.
Inputs and results live only in tab memory. No uploads, accounts, analytics, storage or permission prompts. Reset all or reload discards everything. Only clicking Download .txt requests a local UTF-8 text file.
No resource assignment, calendars, dates, costs, progress tracking, imports, saved projects or collaboration.
Planning questions
How do I find the tasks that control the finish?
Enter 1–30 labeled tasks with whole-number durations of 1–10,000 minutes. Check each task's prerequisites, then choose Analyze. The table gives earliest and latest offsets and slack. Every zero-slack task is critical; red timeline bars and tight critical dependency links highlight that work.
Is the duration a staffing schedule or a promise?
No. Unlimited parallel capacity and accurate fixed durations are assumed. This is a dependency lower bound with finish-to-start, zero-lag dependencies, not a feasible staffing schedule or completion promise. Disconnected branches share the same virtual project finish. No people, calendars or dates are modeled.
Where does my task data go?
Inputs and results live only in tab memory. No uploads, accounts, analytics, storage or permission prompts. Reset all or reload discards everything. Only clicking Download .txt requests a local UTF-8 text file.
How do I fix errors or recover my report?
Validation preserves inputs. Correct invalid durations or remove a link from the concrete cycle reported, then Analyze again. Remove dependent links before deleting a referenced task. Every edit clears results and disables export until reanalysis. Select the complete report manually if saving is blocked. Reset or reload cannot recover work.