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The terminal's black box for your digital life. A privacy-first activity monitor.

Project description

TraceCLI

The terminal's black box for your digital life.

TraceCLI is a privacy-first, AI-powered activity tracker and productivity coach that lives in your terminal. It monitors your digital habits, actively protects your focus, and provides AI-powered coaching to improve your workflow—all without your data ever leaving your machine.

License: MIT GitHub Repository

Why TraceCLI?

TraceCLI isn't just a time tracker. It's an intelligent agent designed to understand your workflow.

  • Privacy First: All data is stored locally in ~/.tracecli/trace.db. Your activity data stays on your machine.
  • Zero Friction: Auto-starts with Windows. Tracks active windows, browser searches, and system resources automatically in the background.
  • AI-Powered: Chat with your productivity data using Natural Language. Get personalized insights and weekly digests to understand where your time goes.

Key Features

Productivity Heatmap

Visualize your consistency with a GitHub-style contribution graph.

tracecli heatmap --weeks 52

Focus Mode

A Pomodoro timer with active distraction detection. If you switch to a non-productive app (e.g., social media) during a session, TraceCLI alerts you immediately to get you back on track.

tracecli focus --duration 25 --goal "Core Feature Implementation"

AI Insights

Get personalized productivity digests or ask questions about your habits using natural language.

tracecli insights  # Weekly coaching report
tracecli ask "What was my most used app on Monday?"

Configurable Rules

Define exactly what counts as "Productive" or "Distraction" for you using simple configuration rules.


Installation

You can install TraceCLI directly from PyPI (coming soon) or from source.

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Haseeb-Arshad/trace-cli.git
cd trace-cli

# Install in editable mode
pip install -e .

# Verify installation
tracecli --version

AI Configuration (Optional)

Supported providers: gemini, openai, claude.

tracecli config --provider gemini --key YOUR_API_KEY

Command Reference

Core & Tracking

  • tracecli start: Start activity tracking (use --background to run silently).
  • tracecli live: View real-time activity feed.
  • tracecli status: Check CLI and Database status.
  • tracecli autostart enable: Enable start on Windows login.

Analytics & Reports

  • tracecli stats: View daily productivity summary.
  • tracecli heatmap: GitHub-style productivity graph.
  • tracecli report: Detailed daily report with app breakdowns.
  • tracecli timeline: Visual daily timeline of activities.
  • tracecli app [NAME]: Deep dive into a specific application's usage.

System & Browsing

  • tracecli urls: Browser history and domain breakdown.
  • tracecli searches: Recent browser search queries.
  • tracecli system: System resource overview (CPU/RAM snapshots).

Architecture

TraceCLI is built on a modular architecture designed for performance and extensibility.

  • Tracker: Polls the Windows API to detect active applications and measures engagement.
  • Categorizer: Maps process names and window titles to categories (Development, Communication, Productivity, etc.) using a flexible rule engine.
  • FocusMonitor: A dedicated background thread that enforces focus rules during active sessions.
  • BrowserBridge: Safely reads browser history databases (Chrome/Edge) to provide context on web usage without invasive extensions.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for details on how to get started.

License

TraceCLI is released under the MIT License.

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