Developer Famine

A frictionless developer bragging ledger and standup architect for VS Code. Log your wins and blockers without leaving your IDE, and turn them into a standup update or a running history in one click.

Features

• One-line logging — a single Quick Input box accepts /win, /block (or /blocker), /todo, or plain text, and files the entry as the right type automatically.
• Completable todos — /todo <task> logs a task; /done opens a filterable picker of your open todos so you can mark one complete.
• Today's Log sidebar — an Activity Bar view showing everything you've logged today, with color-coded icons per type, updating live as you log or delete.
• Copy Standup to Clipboard — formats today's wins, blockers, open todos, completed todos, and notes into a Markdown bulleted list, ready to paste into Slack, a PR description, or a standup doc.
• Dashboard — a full-screen webview showing your entire history, grouped by day, styled like a terminal log (+ win, - blocker, * todo, x done, ~ note) using your actual editor font and your color theme's terminal colors. Click any entry's text to edit it in place, or click rm to delete it.
• Delete from the sidebar too — right-click any entry in the Today's Log view for a quick Delete action, without needing to open the dashboard.
• Export Log — dump your entire history to a .json or .md file as a backup or to share, from the sidebar toolbar or the Command Palette.
• 100% local — everything is stored in VS Code's own local storage on your machine. No servers, no accounts, no network calls. See Data & Privacy below.

Installation

This extension isn't published to the Marketplace yet. Until then, install it from source:

git clone https://github.com/remoshan/the-developer-famine.git
cd the-developer-famine
npm install
npm run compile
npx vsce package
code --install-extension the-developer-famine-1-1-1.4.0.vsix

Once published, this section will be replaced with a direct Marketplace link.

Usage

Logging an entry

Open the log input any of these ways:

Then type one of:

/win Fixed the memory leak
/block Waiting on AWS keys
/blocker Waiting on AWS keys
/todo Write unit tests for the parser
Just a plain note, no prefix needed

/win, /block//blocker, or /todo typed alone with nothing after it is rejected with a warning — it won't log an empty or literal /win entry.

Completing a todo

Type /done into the same log input — the picker opens automatically the moment you finish typing it, no need to press Enter first. It lists every open todo; keep typing to filter it further (carries over anything you typed right after /done), or click one directly, then press Enter to confirm. The selected todo flips to a done state everywhere it's shown (dashboard, sidebar, and standup output) — it isn't deleted, just marked complete. If there are no open todos, you'll get a message instead of an empty picker.

Why can't I just type /developer-famine <message> into VS Code's global search bar? VS Code's built-in Command Palette and Quick Open are fixed, closed components — extensions cannot make them accept trailing free text as an argument to a command. Selecting a command from the Palette must always open a new Quick Input for further text, which is exactly what "Log Entry" does. This is true for every VS Code extension (Git, GitLens, etc.), not a limitation specific to this one.

Commands

All six are also available as buttons in the sidebar's view title bar. Delete Entry is available by right-clicking an entry in the sidebar instead, since it needs a specific entry to act on. Copy Weekly Report works just like Copy Standup but covers the last 7 days instead of just today.

Editing and deleting entries

In the Dashboard, click an entry's text to edit it in place (Enter to save, Escape to cancel), or click rm to delete it. In the sidebar, right-click an entry for a Delete option. Entries can't be edited from the sidebar — use the Dashboard for that.

Exporting your log

Run Developer Famine: Export Log, choose JSON (the raw entry data) or Markdown (grouped by day, same sectioning as Copy Standup), then pick a save location. Useful as a backup, or to hand off a log to someone else.

Dashboard search and streaks

The filter box at the top of the Dashboard matches against entry text as you type. The summary line also shows your current daily logging streak once it's 1 day or more.

Data & Privacy

Every entry is stored exclusively in VS Code's ExtensionContext.globalState, persisted locally on your machine (VS Code's per-profile globalStorage folder). This extension makes no network requests of any kind, and the dashboard webview's Content-Security-Policy blocks it from making any even if it tried.

If you use VS Code Settings Sync, your log data is included (opted in via setKeysForSync) and can follow you to other machines signed into the same account. If you don't use Settings Sync, your data stays on this one machine.

Known Limitations

• Multiple windows: if you have two VS Code windows open at once and log an entry in both around the same time, the second write can silently overwrite the first (a structural limit of globalState — it has no cross-process transactions). Logging from a single window at a time avoids this entirely.
• VS Code Profiles: each Profile has isolated storage. Switching profiles will show an empty log — your data isn't deleted, just under the other profile.

Development

git clone https://github.com/remoshan/the-developer-famine.git
cd the-developer-famine
npm install

Press F5 in VS Code (or Run → Start Debugging) to compile and launch an Extension Development Host window with the extension loaded. Use npm run watch in a terminal while iterating, then reload the Extension Development Host window (Ctrl+R) to pick up TypeScript changes; CSS/JS changes in media/ apply on the next time the dashboard panel is opened.

Project structure

src/
  extension.ts       entry point — registers commands, status bar item, midnight refresh
  logStore.ts         globalState-backed storage + /win /block /todo parser + todo completion
  sidebarProvider.ts   TreeDataProvider for the "Today's Log" view + standup formatter
  dashboardPanel.ts    webview panel host (CSP, data injection, edit/delete round-trip)
media/
  dashboard.css        dashboard styling
  dashboard.js          dashboard rendering logic
resources/
  icon.svg              Activity Bar icon

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at the GitHub repository.

License

MIT