DEV Community

Kelly Popko
Kelly Popko

Posted on

Timewarrior: Track time from the Command Line

#timewarrior #productivity #timetracking #cli

Timewarrior describes itself as a 'Free and Open Source Software that tracks time from the command line'.

This article will touch on installation and cover just enough here to get your feet wet.

  • How to start recording
  • How to stop recording
  • How to view the summary

Timewarrior can be installed manually or using a package manager.
See their Install page for options.

Mac / Homebrew users can use:

brew install timewarrior
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

How to use Timewarrior

Let’s say we want to track how much time we spend reading a book--Sandi Metz’s Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby (POODR).

Start the timer

❯ timew start "Read POODR"
Tracking "Read POODR"
  Started 2025-09-18T20:08:47
  Current                  47
  Total               0:00:00
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

To stop the timer, we can specify the task (but we do not need to).
Timewarrior records one task at a time.

Stop the timer

❯ timew stop
Recorded "Read POODR"
  Started 2025-09-18T20:10:50
  Ended                    57
  Total               0:00:07
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

We can also view a summary of time spent on various items.

Get a Summary for the Day

❯ timew summary

Wk  Date        Day ID Tags Annotation    Start      End     Time    Total
W37 2025-09-18  Thu @3      Read POODR 20:08:47 20:10:32  0:01:45  0:01:45
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Timewarrior is a new tool to me and there is more we can do with it.
Check out the tutorial and docs linked below.

In future posts, I will share how to use related-tool Taskwarrior, and how to use them together.

This post was inspired by the daily challenge of managing competing priorities with limited time.

Thank you to my mentor, Victor Goff (KOTP), for telling me about Timewarrior, Taskwarrior, and showing me how he uses them together.

I have only recently started using them--admittedly, too recently for me to benefit much from the reporting.
That said, the process of tracking and the flexibility--especially combined with Taskwarrior--has already been very beneficial.

Top comments (0)