Systems and methods are described for creating tasks for an action-based checklist. In an example, a checklist system can receive a body of text, such as text from an email, calendar invite, or document. The checklist system can extract words in the text body that correspond to a task description component of stored task templates. Based on the extracted words, the checklist system can identify an applicable task template. The checklist system can parse utterances in the text body and identify an entity value based on example utterances provided in the task template. The checklist system can insert the entity value into placeholders in the task template and generate task from the task template. The checklist system can add the task to a checklist that is provided to a user device.