With the following:
(setq org-agenda-sorting-strategy '((agenda time-up deadline-down
scheduled-down habit-down priority-down category-keep)
(todo priority-down category-keep)
(tags priority-down category-keep)
(search category-keep)))
The `time-up` is correctly shown first; however, all scheduled items are
shown next as opposed to all deadline items (the order should be the other
way around).
Also, it is unfortunate that there is no symbol for upcoming deadline items
to differentiate them from past deadline items. Since they are considered
"earliest", the sorting goes from "In 5 days... -> In 3 days... -> 2 days
ago --> 4 days ago", which is rarely useful. There is no way to sort just
items past due date "2 days ago --> 4 days ago --> 5 days ago", which is a
much more common workflow (e.g. looking down the agenda, the more
salvageable recent deadline items are at the top). It is more sensible to
just limit deadline items to items due today or the past, and have a
separate symbol for upcoming deadlines (i.e. "upcoming-deadline-down" and
"upcoming-deadline-up"). Then, one can e.g. put all upcoming deadline items
at the bottom of the agenda because he wants to deal with items that are
more relevant now.
Currently on lorg-mode 9.3.1 (latest version of org-mode available as of
this submission).
