Sijl

Sijl (سِجِلّ, Arabic for "a record, a register") — your work, on the record.

Sijl summarises your own git work for a review period — a quarter, a half year, the last six months — straight from the repositories already on your computer. It reads git history only: no accounts to connect, no tracker to fill in, nothing uploaded.

What it does

• Finds your repositories under the folders you name, and your commits in them — matched by your exact email addresses, pushed or not, copies (rebases, cherry-picks) counted once.
• Writes a review-ready Markdown report: a summary in sentences, highlights, per repository, per month, kinds of work, the merge requests and pull requests you delivered, Jira tickets, work not pushed yet, and Caveats saying what was left out and why. Every commit is linked to GitHub or GitLab.
• Lets you ask an AI about your period with evidence: sijl digest writes a compact file with ids to cite for Claude Code or any AI chat; sijl ask asks Claude directly and checks every id the answer cites against your history.
• Stays honest about its numbers: a fixed, stated rule for everything it picks, and the numbers are evidence of work, not a performance score.

A report starts like this (a made-up example):

# Work summary — Alex Example

**Period:** 1 April 2026 to 30 June 2026 (inclusive; by author date, in each commit's own timezone)

## Summary

Between 1 April 2026 and 30 June 2026 you authored **13 commits** on **13 active days** across
**3 repositories** — most in app (7), site (4), tools (2). Your longest streak was **3 weekdays**
in a row with commits, from 11 May 2026 to 13 May 2026 (…). 1 more commit is not pushed yet and
not in these numbers (see *Not pushed yet*). 5 merge requests and pull requests of yours were
merged, and you merged 1 for colleagues (see *Delivered*).

## Highlights

- **Busiest month:** April 2026 — 5 commits on 5 active days.
- **Largest merge requests and pull requests** (3 of 5, by commits of yours):
  - #13 Search — 2 commits of yours, in site, merged 2026-04-22
  - !42 Export the report (PROJ-12) — 2 commits of yours, in app, merged 2026-04-08
  …

Requirements

• macOS or Linux. Windows is untested.
• git 2.36 or newer (git --version).
• uv, which installs Sijl and fetches Python 3.12 for it if your computer does not have it: brew install uv, or curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh.

Install

uv tool install sijl
sijl --version                    # sijl 1.0.2

If your shell says sijl: command not found, run uv tool update-shell once and open a new terminal.

• Upgrade: uv tool upgrade sijl moves you to the newest release; your config file is not touched.
• One exact version: uv tool install "sijl==1.0.2". Keep the quotes: a range such as "sijl>=1.0.2" needs them, or the shell reads > as a redirect. To move on from a pinned version, install the next one you choose the same way.
• From a git tag: uv tool install git+https://github.com/ibnelhithem/sijl@v1.0.2.
• With pip: pip install sijl works too, but only inside a virtual environment. uv tool install gives Sijl its own libraries, apart from your other Python tools.
• A command, not a library: the sijl package on PyPI is the sijl command. The sijl.* modules are internal and can change in any release.
• Uninstall: uv tool uninstall sijl (your config file and saved reports stay; delete them yourself if you want them gone).

More, including installing from a downloaded wheel: docs/install.md.

First run

1. See which config file Sijl reads:

   sijl config show
   

   The first line names it: ~/.config/sijl/config.toml, or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sijl/config.toml when that variable is set. It does not exist yet — create it:

   [identity]
   emails = ["you@example.com"]    # every address you commit with
   
   [scan]
   roots = ["~/code", "~/work"]    # one entry for each folder of repositories
   
   [window]
   last = "6m"                     # or quarter = "2026Q3", half = "2026H1", year = 2026
   

   Not sure which addresses you commit with? Inside one of your repositories, git log -5 --format=%ae shows them. Use exactly those, and list them all (a work address, a personal one, GitHub's …@users.noreply.github.com). Every setting: docs/configuration.md.

2. Check what it will read:

   sijl repos
   

   Every repository it found, once each, and every folder it skipped, with the reason (docs/repos.md).

3. Write the report:

   sijl report --out ~/review.md
   

   Run it from outside your repositories (your home folder is fine): Sijl refuses to write a relative --out path into a repository it reads. Without --out the report is printed instead. Any flag overrides the file for one run, for example --quarter 2026Q3 or --root ~/code/work; sijl report --help lists them all.

4. Read it, starting with Summary, Highlights and Caveats — the Caveats say what was not counted and why, before anyone else asks. What every section means: docs/report.md.

Asking AI — two tiers

Both tiers ask about the same evidence: your period's commits, merge requests, pull requests and tickets, each with an id the answer can cite.

Tier 1 — free, nothing sent by Sijl. Write the digest and give it to Claude Code, or attach it in ChatGPT, Gemini, or any other AI chat:

sijl digest --with-prompt --out digest.txt
claude 'Read digest.txt and answer: what did I deliver for ABC-123?'

Colleagues' names and email addresses are replaced by [person N] / [email N]; your own name and addresses, commit subjects, merge request and pull request titles, repository names and ticket keys are kept as written. Check your employer's policy on AI tools before you give the file to one. More: docs/digest.md.

Tier 2 — sijl ask, billed to you. With an Anthropic API key (create one at console.anthropic.com; usage is billed to your account):

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=…
sijl ai status                            # is AI on, and why
sijl ask "What did I deliver in Q3?"      # one question
sijl ask -i                               # follow-up questions, one yes for all

Nothing is sent before Sijl shows you exactly what will be sent, with a cost estimate, and you say yes. As a rough guide for six months of work: about $0.40–0.80 for the first question and about $0.02 for each follow-up, which re-reads the evidence from Claude's cache. The answer is shown as an AI-written block; the Evidence section after it is what Sijl verified — each id the answer cited, with your history's own line for it. Ids that are not in your evidence are marked. More: docs/ai.md.

Troubleshooting

Exit codes: 0 done · 2 a usage or configuration error (the message names the flag or the setting) · 3 no repository found · 4 AI is off, failed or gave no complete answer · 5 an answer cites an id that is not in your evidence · 1 git is missing or failed.

Privacy

• Everything runs on your computer. Sijl only reads git history: it never writes into your repositories and never runs commands a repository's own settings name.
• No network — except sijl ask and sijl ai check, which send to Claude only after showing you what will be sent and getting your yes.
• Reports and digests are files you choose to write; they contain your work history, so treat them like any other personal document.

Documentation

docs/ — install, configuration, the report, sijl repos, sijl digest, sijl ask. Contributing: CONTRIBUTING.md. Changes: CHANGELOG.md.

Licence

MIT © 2026 ibnelhithem.