impact log CLI

Capture what you did — and the impact it had — right from the terminal. impact builds a draft and opens it in your impact log: check it there and save. From a commit it takes the subject, the body and links to the commit and the branch.

npm install --global impact-log
impact add "Sped up CI" -s 4 --link https://github.com/org/repo/pull/42 -m "Build time=12->4 min"

Or without installing: npx impact-log add "Sped up CI". Requires Node.js 22 or newer.

Examples

# Everything with flags
impact add "Sped up CI" -s 4 -c Performance -l ci \
  --link https://github.com/org/repo/pull/42 -m "Build time=12->4 min"

# Interactive: without a title in a terminal, impact asks for the title and the score
impact add

# Description from stdin
git log -1 --format=%b | impact add "Migrated the service to Node 22" --stdin

# From a commit: subject → title, body → description, commit and branch → artifacts
impact git
impact git --rev HEAD~2 -s 3 -l refactoring

# Just the link or the draft as JSON (the browser is not opened)
impact add "Led the incident review" --print
impact add "Led the incident review" --json

# What's inside a capture link (offline, validated)
impact decode "https://impact-log.com/capture#draft=eyJ…"

Commands

| Command | What it does | | --- | --- | | impact add [title…] | Capture what you did and its impact | | impact git [--rev <rev>] | Capture a commit (HEAD by default) | | impact decode <link> | Print the draft inside a capture link as JSON; - reads the link from stdin | | impact config get \| set \| unset \| path | Your impact log address (see below) |

Options of add (and mostly of git):

| Option | | | --- | --- | | -s, --score <1-5> | Impact: 1 small win … 5 key result of the year | | -c, --category <name> | Category, repeatable | | -l, --label <name> | Label, repeatable; commas work too: -l ci,perf | | --link <url> | PR, issue, commit or doc link, repeatable; the type is detected automatically | | -m, --metric <spec> | "Label=value unit" or "Label=before->after unit", repeatable | | --date <YYYY-MM-DD> | When it happened (default: today; for git — the commit date) | | -d, --description <text>, --stdin | Description (Markdown) | | --print, --json, --no-open | Print the link or the draft instead of opening the browser | | --app-url <url> | impact log address for this run |

Full help: impact --help, impact add --help, impact git --help.

impact git builds links when origin points to GitHub (including Enterprise), GitLab (including self-hosted and subgroups) or bitbucket.org; otherwise the commit is kept by its SHA. A branch link is added only if the branch has an upstream on the same remote.

Exit codes: 0 — success, 1 — invalid input (flags, validation, not a git repository, the draft doesn't fit into a link), 2 — anything else (config file, git failed).

Configuration

impact config set app-url http://localhost:5173   # e.g. a local impact log
impact config get                                  # the effective value and where it comes from
impact config unset app-url
impact config path

The address is taken from --app-url, then IMPACT_LOG_URL, then the config file, and defaults to https://impact-log.com. Only https:// is allowed (http:// only for localhost). The config lives in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/impact-log/config.json (~/.config/impact-log/config.json; on Windows %APPDATA%\impact-log\config.json) with permissions 600.

Messages are in English, or in Russian when LANG/LC_ALL starts with ru.

Privacy

• No network requests and no telemetry. The CLI only opens a link in your browser (open, xdg-open or rundll32 on Windows — without a shell, the URL as a separate argument).
• The draft travels in the link fragment (after #), which the browser never sends to a server. The link may stay in your browser history, like any address.
• impact git reads only commit metadata with your local git. Credentials from https remotes and local file paths never end up in the draft.
• impact log itself encrypts entries in your browser; with sync on, the server only gets ciphertext. What is stored where: impact-log.com/principles.

По-русски

Записывайте, что сделали и какой был эффект, прямо из терминала: impact add "Ускорил сборку" -s 4 или impact git для последнего коммита. Черновик откроется в impact log — проверьте и сохраните. CLI не делает сетевых запросов: черновик передаётся во фрагменте ссылки. Сообщения на русском, если LANG начинается с ru. Установка: npm install --global impact-log.

Development

In the impact log monorepo:

pnpm install
pnpm --filter impact-log build    # → apps/cli/dist/impact.js, one self-contained file
pnpm --filter impact-log smoke    # the main scenarios against the built CLI
node apps/cli/dist/impact.js --help

License

AGPL-3.0