track-dev-time

track-dev-time is a CLI tool designed to automatically track your development sessions. When installed in a project, it modifies the startup scripts and tracks time seamlessly, without requiring any additional input from the user.

Why?

Developers often underestimate how much time is spent coding. Track Dev Time helps you capture that data automatically — no timers, no distractions, just insights.

Features

• Automatic Tracking: As soon as you run the development script (npm run dev or equivalent), track-dev-time automatically starts tracking the session.
• Session Management: It automatically starts, pauses, and stops tracking time when the development server is started or stopped.
• Data Recording: The session data is automatically saved in a JSON file, including details about the duration of each development session.

Installation

You can install track-dev-time using any of the following package managers:

  #npm
  npm install track-dev-time --save-dev

  # pnpm
  pnpm add -D track-dev-time

  # yarn
  yarn add track-dev-time --dev

Setup

Once installed, run the setup command to automatically configure your project:

  # npm
  npx track-dev-time setup

  # pnpm
  pnpm dlx track-dev-time setup

  # yarn
  yarn track-dev-time setup

This will:

• Automatically create a .track-dev-time/config.json file with default configuration values.
• Update your package.json to run the tracker and dev server concurrently.
• Add .track-dev-time/ to your .gitignore to exclude session files from version control.
• Prompt you to install concurrently if it’s not already installed.

ℹ️ To enable automatic tracking while your dev server is running, your project must run both tasks in parallel (dev server + tracker).
track-dev-time recommends using concurrently for this purpose.

During setup, the CLI will detect if concurrently is installed and offer to install it automatically if it’s missing.

You're free to use any other process runner (like npm-run-all, turbo, etc.), but you’ll need to set it up manually to ensure the tracker and your server run together.

How It Works

Once the package is installed and configured using the setup command, track-dev-time automatically hooks into your development workflow. Every time you run your project’s development script, time tracking is launched in parallel with your server.

Example dev script in package.json

After running the setup command, your dev script will be updated to run both the development server and the tracker using concurrently:

// Before
"scripts": {
  "dev": "next dev"
}

// After setup
"scripts": {
  "dev": "concurrently -n server,track -c ,green \"next dev\" \"track-dev-time start\""
}

• server: This is your usual development server process (e.g., next dev). It runs your app as normal.
• track: This is the track-dev-time process that automatically tracks your coding sessions in the background.

The -n server,track option names the two processes in the console output, so you can easily distinguish their logs.

The -c ,green option sets the color of the track process logs to green, making it easy to identify time-tracking related messages among other console output.

This setup ensures that both your development server and the tracking tool run simultaneously without interfering with your usual workflow.

Configuration of Track Dev Time

Track Dev Time uses a local JSON configuration file to customize behaviors such as inactivity timeout and automatic session resume window.

Configuration File

The config file is located in the hidden folder .track-dev-time at your project root: .track-dev-time/config.json

Default Content

On first run or when executing the setup command, a config.json file is automatically created with the following default values:

{
  "inactivityTimeoutMs": 900000,
  "autoResumeSessionWindowMs": 300000
}

• inactivityTimeoutMs: Inactivity timeout in milliseconds before the session is automatically paused. Default is 900,000 ms = 15 minutes.
• autoResumeSessionWindowMs: Time window in milliseconds to automatically resume a previous session if restarted within this delay. Default is 300,000 ms = 5 minutes.

Modifying the Configuration

You can modify these values by manually editing the config.json file with your favorite text editor.

For example, to reduce the inactivity timeout to 5 minutes, update the file as follows:

{
  "inactivityTimeoutMs": 300000,
  "autoResumeSessionWindowMs": 300000
}

Applying Changes

New values will be applied as soon as the CLI reads the config file again, typically on start or when running commands.

Data File

Your development time is automatically recorded in a JSON file located in your project directory. This file contains detailed information about each development session, including any pauses.

Data File Format

The session data is stored as an array of session objects. Each session records the start and end times, total duration, and any pauses during the session.

Example of the data stored:

[
  {
    "id": "session-1",
    "start": "2025-05-12T10:00:00Z",
    "pauses": [
      {
        "id": "pause-1",
        "start": "2025-05-12T10:15:00Z",
        "end": "2025-05-12T10:20:00Z"
      }
    ],
    "end": "2025-05-12T10:45:00Z",
    "duration": 45.0
  },
  {
    "id": "session-2",
    "start": "2025-05-12T14:00:00Z",
    "pauses": [
      {
        "id": "pause-2",
        "start": "2025-05-12T14:10:00Z",
        "end": "2025-05-12T14:15:00Z"
      }
    ],
    "end": "2025-05-12T14:45:00Z",
    "duration": 45.0
  }
]

Each session includes:

• id: A unique identifier for each session.
• start: The timestamp when the session started.
• end: The timestamp when the session ended.
• duration: The total duration of the session, in seconds.

Pauses:

Each session can include multiple pauses:

• id: A unique identifier for each pause.
• start: The timestamp when the pause started.
• end: The timestamp when the pause ended.

This structure helps clearly differentiate active development time from pauses, allowing for precise tracking of work and breaks during each session.

Automatic Functionality

Once setup is complete, you won’t need to manually run the track-dev-time start command. The tool integrates seamlessly into your existing development workflow.

Every time you run your development script (like next dev or an equivalent command), track-dev-time will automatically start tracking your session—no extra input needed. When the development server stops, the session ends and the data is saved automatically.

You can focus entirely on coding while track-dev-time quietly handles the time tracking in the background.

How Sessions End Automatically

track-dev-time detects the end of a session when your development server stops. This typically happens when:

• When the process receives a termination signal (SIGINT, SIGTERM, etc.)
• When the Node.js process naturally exits (process.on('exit'))
• When the terminal is closed or the dev command is interrupted (Ctrl+C)

The CLI uses these system signals to automatically stop the session and write the final session data to the JSON file. This way, you don’t need to manually run track-dev-time stop.

💡 If the server is restarted within 5 minutes, the same session can be resumed automatically instead of starting a new one.

Uninstall

To completely uninstall track-dev-time and remove all related files and modifications, run the following command before uninstalling the package:

  # npm
  npx track-dev-time uninstall

  # pnpm
  pnpm dlx track-dev-time uninstall

  # yarn
  yarn track-dev-time uninstall

This command will:

• Delete the .track-dev-time folder, including session data, config.json, and meta.json.
• Remove .track-dev-time/ from your .gitignore.
• Restore the original dev script in your package.json, if it was backed up during setup.
• Automatically uninstall concurrently if it was installed by the CLI during setup.

If you’ve already removed the package without running this command, you can manually:

• Delete the .track-dev-time/ directory
• Remove the .track-dev-time/ entry from your .gitignore
• Restore your original dev script in package.json
• Optionally uninstall concurrently with your package manager if you no longer use it

💡 Run npm uninstall track-dev-time (or yarn remove / pnpm remove) only after the uninstall command to ensure a clean removal.