studytracker

Track what you study, in minutes, from the command line. Minimal dependencies, fast to set up, and designed as a small but complete portfolio-quality Python project.

What it does

• Add sessions: Log a topic and how many minutes you studied, optionally with a specific date.
• List sessions: See a chronological list of everything you've logged.
• Report totals: View total minutes across all topics, or filtered to a single topic.

Under the hood, studytracker stores your data in a simple JSON file on your machine, so there’s nothing to configure and no external services to rely on.

Why this exists

• Build real-world muscle: It demonstrates packaging with pyproject.toml, a console entrypoint, clean module structure, and tests.
• Practical habit tool: A quick way to track focused study time without switching context to a GUI.
• Zero-dependency runtime: Uses only the Python standard library for simple, reliable persistence.

How it works

The code is organized into small modules:

• models.py: Defines the StudySession data model with lightweight validation.
• storage.py: Reads/writes sessions as JSON to a data file in your home directory (or a custom path via env var).
• logic.py: Business logic for adding, listing, and aggregating sessions.
• cli.py: The command-line interface powered by argparse.

By default, data is stored at ~/.studytracker/sessions.json. For tests or custom setups, set STUDYTRACKER_HOME to change the base directory.

Installation

Requirements: Python 3.12+

# from the project root
python -m pip install -e .

This installs a console command named studytracker.

Usage

# Add sessions (default date is today)
studytracker add "Python" 30
studytracker add "Math" 45 --date 2025-08-10

# List what you've logged
studytracker list

# Totals across all topics
studytracker report

# Totals for a single topic (case-insensitive)
studytracker report --topic Python

Example output:

Added: Python for 30 min on 2025-08-11
Added: Math for 45 min on 2025-08-10
1. 2025-08-11 — Python: 30 min
2. 2025-08-10 — Math: 45 min
Total minutes: 75
Total for 'Python': 30 min

Configuration

• Data location: Set STUDYTRACKER_HOME to point storage somewhere else (useful for tests or portable setups).
  • Default: ~/.studytracker/sessions.json
• Date format: YYYY-MM-DD. If omitted, today’s date is used.

Development

Helpful commands (optional but recommended):

# Run tests
pytest -q

# Lint and format
ruff check .
black .

# Type-check
mypy src/

Roadmap ideas

• CSV/Markdown export of reports
• Stricter type hints and mypy configuration
• Streak tracking (consecutive study days)

License

MIT (or your preferred license). Replace this section if you adopt a different license.