Work Journal

Persistent local storage for daily work snapshots and activity tracking

Overview

The Work Journal is DevDaily’s “memory” layer — it stores daily work snapshots locally so you can recall what you were doing on any date, across any project. It powers context recovery, smart recall, and cross-project weekly summaries.

Storage Location

All journal data is stored locally at:

~/.config/devdaily/journal/

Nothing is sent to external servers. Your work history stays on your machine.

Directory Structure

The journal uses a date-based directory structure:

~/.config/devdaily/journal/
  ├── index.json                    # Project registry + metadata
  ├── 2024-01-15/
  │   ├── my-project.json           # Snapshot for that project on that day
  │   └── other-project.json
  ├── 2024-01-16/
  │   └── my-project.json
  └── 2024-01-17/
      ├── my-project.json
      └── other-project.json

Index File

The index.json file maintains a registry of all projects and their snapshot history:

{
  "version": 1,
  "projects": [
    {
      "projectId": "my-project",
      "repoPath": "/Users/me/code/my-project",
      "remoteUrl": "https://github.com/user/my-project",
      "lastSnapshotDate": "2024-01-17",
      "snapshotCount": 45,
      "firstSeen": "2023-12-01"
    }
  ],
  "lastUpdated": "2024-01-17T14:30:00Z"
}

Snapshot Files

Each snapshot is stored as a JSON file with this structure:

{
  "date": "2024-01-17",
  "takenAt": "2024-01-17T14:30:00Z",
  "projectId": "my-project",
  "repoPath": "/Users/me/code/my-project",
  "remoteUrl": "https://github.com/user/my-project",
  "currentBranch": "feature/new-auth",
  "activeBranches": [...],
  "todayCommits": [...],
  "recentCommits": [...],
  "pullRequests": [...],
  "tickets": [...],
  "categories": [...],
  "topChangedFiles": [...],
  "diffStats": { "filesChanged": 12, "insertions": 340, "deletions": 120 },
  "notes": "Working on user authentication",
  "aiSummary": "Implemented JWT-based authentication",
  "tags": ["feature", "auth", "auto:standup"]
}

Snapshot Data Structure

Core Metadata

date · string · required

ISO date string (YYYY-MM-DD)

takenAt · string · required

ISO timestamp of when snapshot was taken

projectId · string · required

Sanitized repo name or directory name

repoPath · string · required

Absolute path to the repo root

Git Information

currentBranch · string · required

Current branch at snapshot time

activeBranches · array · required

All active (non-merged) local branches with status

todayCommits · array · required

Commits made on the snapshot date

recentCommits · array · required

Commits made in the last 7 days for context

Work Context

pullRequests · array

Open/recently merged PRs

tickets · array

Active/recently touched tickets from Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues

categories · array

Work categories breakdown (e.g., frontend: 60%, backend: 40%)

topChangedFiles · array

Most frequently changed files

diffStats · object

Diff statistics: filesChanged, insertions, deletions

User-Added Content

notes · string

Free-form notes attached by the user

aiSummary · string

AI-generated summary of what you were working on

tags · array

Auto-extracted + user-supplied tags for search

Search and Retrieval

Search by Query

The journal supports full-text search across all snapshot content:

const journal = new WorkJournal();
const results = journal.search({
  query: 'authentication',
  from: '2024-01-01',
  to: '2024-01-31',
  limit: 10
});

Searchable fields:

• Commit messages
• Branch names
• File paths
• PR titles
• Ticket IDs and titles
• Notes
• AI summaries
• Tags
• Project IDs

Search by Tags

const results = journal.search({
  tags: ['feature', 'auth'],
  from: '2024-01-01',
  to: '2024-01-31'
});

Search by Project

const results = journal.search({
  projectId: 'my-project',
  from: '2024-01-01',
  to: '2024-01-31'
});

Relevance Scoring

Search results are ranked by relevance:

• Branch name match: +10 points
• Active branch match: +5 points
• PR title match: +5 points
• Ticket match: +5 points
• Tag match: +5 points
• Notes match: +4 points
• Commit message match: +3 points
• AI summary match: +3 points
• Project ID match: +3 points
• File path match: +2 points

From src/core/work-journal.ts:1050:

private matchSnapshot(
  snapshot: WorkSnapshot,
  query?: string,
  tags?: string[]
): { score: number; reasons: string[] } {
  let score = 0;
  const reasons: string[] = [];

  // Tag matching
  if (tags && tags.length > 0) {
    const snapshotTags = new Set(snapshot.tags.map((t) => t.toLowerCase()));
    for (const tag of tags) {
      if (snapshotTags.has(tag.toLowerCase())) {
        score += 5;
        reasons.push(`tag: ${tag}`);
      }
    }
  }

  // Text query matching
  if (query) {
    const q = query.toLowerCase();
    
    // Branch name match (high value)
    if (snapshot.currentBranch.toLowerCase().includes(q)) {
      score += 10;
      reasons.push(`branch: ${snapshot.currentBranch}`);
    }
    // ... additional matching logic
  }

  return { score, reasons };
}

Auto-Tagging

Snapshots are automatically tagged based on content:

Branch Prefixes

• feature/ → feature tag
• fix/, bugfix/ → bugfix tag
• hotfix/ → hotfix tag
• chore/ → chore tag
• refactor/ → refactor tag
• docs/ → docs tag
• test/ → test tag

Conventional Commits

Extracted from commit messages:

• feat: → feat tag
• fix: → fix tag
• docs: → docs tag
• refactor: → refactor tag
• test: → test tag
• chore: → chore tag
• perf: → perf tag

Ticket IDs

• PROJ-123 → PROJ-123 tag
• #456 → #456 tag

Work Categories

Categories with ≥20% contribution:

• frontend, backend, api, database, etc.

PR Labels

All PR labels are added as tags

Maintenance

Get Storage Stats

const journal = new WorkJournal();
const stats = journal.getStats();

console.log(stats);
// {
//   totalSnapshots: 245,
//   totalDates: 87,
//   totalProjects: 5,
//   oldestEntry: '2023-12-01',
//   newestEntry: '2024-01-17',
//   storageBytes: 4521340
// }

Prune Old Snapshots

Remove snapshots older than a specific number of days:

const journal = new WorkJournal();
const result = journal.prune(365); // Keep last year only

console.log(result);
// {
//   removedDates: ['2022-11-01', '2022-11-02', ...],
//   removedSnapshots: 42
// }

Pruning is permanent. Removed snapshots cannot be recovered.

Rebuild Index

If your index becomes corrupted or out of sync:

const journal = new WorkJournal();
journal.rebuildIndex();

This scans all date directories and reconstructs the project registry.

Cross-Project Summaries

Get aggregated activity across all projects:

const journal = new WorkJournal();
const summary = journal.getCrossProjectSummary('2024-01-01', '2024-01-07');

console.log(summary);
// {
//   projects: [
//     {
//       projectId: 'my-project',
//       totalCommits: 23,
//       activeDays: 5,
//       branches: ['main', 'feature/auth'],
//       topFiles: ['src/auth.ts', 'src/api.ts'],
//       categories: [{ name: 'backend', percentage: 70 }],
//       diffStats: { filesChanged: 45, insertions: 890, deletions: 340 }
//     }
//   ],
//   totalCommits: 23,
//   totalActiveDays: 5,
//   dateRange: { from: '2024-01-01', to: '2024-01-07' }
// }

File History

Find when a specific file was last worked on:

const journal = new WorkJournal();
const history = journal.findFileHistory('src/auth.ts', 'my-project', 90);

console.log(history);
// [
//   { date: '2024-01-15', commits: [...] },
//   { date: '2024-01-10', commits: [...] }
// ]

Snapshot Merging

When you take multiple snapshots on the same day for the same project, they are merged instead of overwritten:

• Newer metadata wins (branch, timestamp, etc.)
• Commits are deduplicated by hash
• Branches are deduplicated by name
• PRs are deduplicated by number
• Notes are concatenated
• Tags are combined

From src/core/work-journal.ts:987:

private mergeSnapshots(existing: WorkSnapshot, incoming: WorkSnapshot): WorkSnapshot {
  // Deduplicate commits by hash
  const commitMap = new Map<string, JournalCommit>();
  for (const c of existing.todayCommits) {
    commitMap.set(c.hash, c);
  }
  for (const c of incoming.todayCommits) {
    commitMap.set(c.hash, c); // Incoming wins on duplicates
  }

  // Merge tags
  const allTags = new Set([...existing.tags, ...incoming.tags]);

  return {
    ...incoming,
    takenAt: new Date().toISOString(),
    todayCommits: Array.from(commitMap.values()),
    notes: existing.notes
      ? incoming.notes
        ? `${existing.notes}\n\n${incoming.notes}`
        : existing.notes
      : incoming.notes,
    tags: Array.from(allTags),
  };
}

Privacy

All journal data is stored locally at ~/.config/devdaily/journal/. Nothing is ever sent to external servers.

See the Privacy page for more details.