mlm

Pronounced "mlem".

Simple CLI time tracker. Quickly log start/stop points for the current date plus a short note of what you did, stored in SQLite.

Features

• start/stop — log a punch for today, with an optional note attached in the same call
• note — log a work-log entry independent of any punch
• status — a day's stints, notes, and day/week totals, with a live "how much is left today" estimate while a stint is open
• week — a week's per-day totals plus carry-in/fulfillment against target
• week target — override a week's target hours; any shortfall or surplus carries into the next week
• delete note/delete punch — list a date's entries and delete one by number; prints a ready-to-run command to recreate what was deleted
• Everything stored locally in SQLite — no account, no external service
• Cross-platform: Linux (x86_64 and ARM64), Windows (MSVC), and macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)

Planned

Not implemented yet — see docs/dev/SPEC.md §1.2 for the full list and the reasoning behind each:

• Editing a punch/note after it's entered (deleting is implemented — see delete note/delete punch above; the correction path is delete-then-recreate, not in-place edit)
• Per-project tagging on notes/stints
• A terminal dashboard (the deps are already in, the UI isn't built)
• Shell prompt integration (current tracking state in PS1/starship)
• Non-ISO week conventions
• 12-hour (AM/PM) time input — 24h only for now
• +N/-N relative week notation for week's week-id argument (status's DATE argument already accepts -N — see docs/dev/specs/2026-09-13-backdated-punches.md)

Known limitations

• A session spanning midnight splits into two pieces instead of one clean stint (pairing is strictly per calendar date)
• A stop/start typed at the exact same instant, back-to-back between two real stints, can mis-pair (tracked, not yet fixed — see docs/dev/SPEC.md §1.2/§4.3)

Install

cargo install mlm

Needs a Rust toolchain (1.85+, edition 2024) — install one via rustup if you don't have one. No other system dependency: rusqlite's bundled feature compiles SQLite from source, so this works the same on Linux, Windows (MSVC), and macOS. Prebuilt binaries for all five targets (Linux x86_64/ARM64, Windows x86_64, macOS Intel/Apple Silicon) are attached to each release — installable directly via cargo binstall mlm too, signature-verified (see SIGNING.md).

From source

To build the same optimized, thin-LTO release binary the GitHub releases ship, rather than cargo installing from crates.io:

cargo install cargo-dist
dist build --artifacts=local --target <your-triple>

<your-triple> is whichever of this project's five targets matches your machine (e.g. x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, x86_64-pc-windows-msvc, aarch64-apple-darwin). Without --target, dist tries to plan a build for every configured target at once and refuses outright the moment one of them would need cross-compilation (it will not cross-compile to macOS, in particular). The built binary and packaged archive land under target/<triple>/dist/mlm and target/distrib/, respectively.

Stack

• clap — argument parsing (derive API)
• rusqlite (bundled SQLite) — storage
• chrono — time-of-day parsing / duration math
• directories — platform app-data path (Linux, Windows/MSVC, and macOS)
• ratatui + crossterm — terminal dashboard (bar/sparkline charts, text-cell only, no bitmap graphics — portable over SSH and on Windows)

Data location

• Linux: ~/.local/share/mlm/mlm.db
• Windows: %APPDATA%\mlm\data\mlm.db
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/mlm/mlm.db

Override with the MLM_DB_PATH environment variable (mainly useful for tests/scripts, or running against a scratch database).

Usage

The daily loop is: start when you begin working, stop when you break or finish, note for anything worth remembering that doesn't belong on a punch, and status any time you want to see today's stints and how the current week is tracking. week gives the same week-level numbers on their own (handy for a past or future week too), and week target adjusts a week's target when it should be something other than the default 40h.

Every start/stop/note/week target call is silent on success — nothing prints unless something went wrong. status and week are the commands that produce output; delete note/delete punch are a narrow exception too (see below) — a status after punching in/out is still how you confirm things landed correctly.

All commands include 1 character aliases for quick use. I recommend using a 1 character shell alias for mlm too, so it's easy to type (I like to use m).

mlm start|s [TIME] [NOTE...] [-d/--date DATE]

Record a start punch for today. TIME (HH:MM, HHMM or HH, 24h) defaults to now when recording for today; an optional trailing NOTE also records a work-log note for the same date in the same call.

-d/--date DATE targets a different date instead of today — either YYYY-MM-DD or -N for N days before today (e.g. -1 = yesterday). The date must not be in the future. When --date targets a day other than today, TIME is required (there's no "now" to default to).

$ mlm start 09:00 "reviewed open PRs"
$ mlm start --date -1 09:00 "forgot to punch in yesterday"

(no output — see status below to confirm it landed)

Footgun: --date/-d must come before the NOTE text on the command line. NOTE is a trailing variadic that swallows everything after it, including a later --date flag — mlm start 09:00 wrapped up --date -1 silently records --date -1 as part of the note text instead of parsing it as the date flag. See docs/dev/specs/2026-09-13-backdated-punches.md §2.1.

mlm stop|s [TIME] [NOTE...] [-d/--date DATE]

Record an end punch for today, or another day with --date. Same argument shape and TIME-required-when-backdated rule as start (including the --date-before-NOTE footgun above).

$ mlm stop 13:00

mlm note|n NOTE... [-d/--date DATE]

Record a work-log note for today, independent of any punch — for end-of-day notes or anything with nothing to attach to. -d/--date targets a different date the same way as start/stop (YYYY-MM-DD or -N), and must likewise come before the NOTE text or it is silently absorbed into it.

$ mlm note "fixed migration runner bug"
$ mlm note --date -2 "fixed a bug"

mlm status|d [DATE]

Show a date's stints, notes, day total, and the totals for the week that date falls in. DATE accepts YYYY-MM-DD or -N for N days before today (e.g. -1 = yesterday), and defaults to today.

$ mlm status
Sat 2026-09-12

Day total:     07h 25m (+ ongoing), 04h 35m over 40h 00m required by end of Saturday, est. EOD target already met
Week 2026-37:  -04h 35m left by end of Saturday (fulfillment 44h 35m / target 40h 00m)

  09:00-13:00  (04h 00m)
  14:05-17:30  (03h 25m)
  17:45-now    (05h 19m, ongoing)

Notes:
  - reviewed open PRs
  - fixed migration runner bug

The required-by-day pace hint and estimated-EOD line only show up when DATE is today (they need "now" to mean anything). A past date's status just shows that day's total and its week's numbers:

$ mlm status 2026-09-08
Tue 2026-09-08

Day total:     07h 35m
Week 2026-37:  -04h 35m left by end of Saturday (fulfillment 44h 35m / target 40h 00m)

  09:05-16:40  (07h 35m)

mlm week|w [WEEK_ID]

Show a week's per-day totals plus its carry-in/worked/fulfillment/ target summary. WEEK_ID accepts a full id (YYYY-WW, e.g. 2026-37) or a bare week number for the current year (e.g. 37), and defaults to the current week.

$ mlm week
Week 2026-37 (2026-09-07 - 2026-09-13)

-04h 35m left by end of Saturday

  Mon 2026-09-07   08h 15m
  Tue 2026-09-08   07h 35m
  Wed 2026-09-09   08h 15m
  Thu 2026-09-10   07h 45m
  Fri 2026-09-11   05h 20m
  Sat 2026-09-12   07h 25m (ongoing)
  Sun 2026-09-13   00h 00m

Carry-in:      00h 00m
Worked:        44h 35m
Fulfillment:   44h 35m
Target:        40h 00m

mlm week|w target [WEEK_ID] DURATION

Set an absolute target override for a week (default target is 40h when no override exists). WEEK_ID accepts the same forms as week and defaults to the current week; DURATION uses the human format (20h, 33h30m, 45m), never raw minutes, and is always the last token. Silent on success:

$ mlm week target 45h
$ mlm week
Week 2026-37 (2026-09-07 - 2026-09-13)

00h 25m left by end of Saturday

  Mon 2026-09-07   08h 15m
  Tue 2026-09-08   07h 35m
  Wed 2026-09-09   08h 15m
  Thu 2026-09-10   07h 45m
  Fri 2026-09-11   05h 20m
  Sat 2026-09-12   07h 25m (ongoing)
  Sun 2026-09-13   00h 00m

Carry-in:      00h 00m
Worked:        44h 35m
Fulfillment:   44h 35m
Target:        45h 00m

mlm delete|del note|n [ID] [-d/--date DATE]

List or delete today's (or another date's) notes. Run with no ID to list that date's notes numbered 1..N; run again with a number to delete that entry — deleting prints a ready-to-run command to recreate it. -d/--date targets a different date the same way as start/stop/note (YYYY-MM-DD or -N), and defaults to today.

$ mlm delete note --date 2026-09-10
1  fixed migration runner bug
2  reviewed open PRs
$ mlm delete note 1 --date 2026-09-10
deleted. to recreate: mlm note --date 2026-09-10 'fixed migration runner bug'

Stale-id caveat: ID is always resolved against a fresh listing at the moment you run delete, not whatever listing you last looked at. If notes were added or removed for that date since you last ran mlm delete note with no ID, an old number may no longer point at the entry you think it does — worst case is deleting the wrong entry at that position, never a nonexistent one. Re-run with no ID right before deleting if you're not sure the listing is still fresh.

mlm delete|del punch|p [ID] [-d/--date DATE]

Same list/delete shape as delete note, for punches instead — -d/--date and the stale-id caveat above both apply identically.

$ mlm delete punch
1  start 09:00
2  end 13:00
$ mlm delete punch 2
deleted. to recreate: mlm stop 13:00 --date 2026-09-10

Build (local dev)

Plain cargo, no dist needed — a debug build, for iterating on the code itself:

cargo build
cargo run -- start "working on mlm"

License

Licensed under the EUPL v1.2.