DevLife

A private, zero-setup memory of your development work for VS Code.

DevLife records the work that normally disappears between sessions: files you edit and save, diagnostics that appear and resolve, Git changes, and terminal commands. It keeps that history locally and lets you search it by keywords, identifiers, time, and position in your activity timeline.

There is no account, model download, API key, telemetry, cloud service, or network connection required.

What it does

Source	What DevLife records
Editor	File focus, saves, and coalesced edit bursts
Diagnostics	Errors and warnings appearing, resolving, and the associated file diff
Git	Commits, branch switches, and merges
Terminal	Meaningful commands and their exit codes when shell integration is available

Captured events are redacted, filtered, stored locally as inspectable JSONL, grouped into work sessions, and searched with a local BM25 index. Queries understand common time phrases such as “yesterday” and “last week”; questions about “first” or “last” use timeline order rather than keyword score.

Install and run

Requirements: VS Code 1.93+ and Node.js 20+ for development.

git clone https://github.com/marvinmvarghese/devlife
cd devlife
npm install
npm run compile

Open this folder in VS Code and press F5. Choose Run DevLife Extension (sample workspace) for a disposable Extension Development Host.

Commands

Command	Result
`DevLife: Ask About My History`	Opens Matching history for a keyword or time-based query
`DevLife: Where Did I Leave Off?`	Shows the most recent work session
`DevLife: Open Context Panel`	Opens the Matching history sidebar
`DevLife: Pause / Resume Capture`	Enables or disables all capture sources
`DevLife: Show Capture Statistics`	Shows event, session, and storage statistics
`DevLife: Export My Data (JSON)`	Exports the current workspace history
`DevLife: Delete All Captured Data`	Permanently removes the current workspace history

Matching history always shows actual recorded events. Each result includes its timestamp and match reason; source chips open the relevant file. If words do not match anything directly, DevLife clearly labels the displayed entries as recent activity rather than pretending they matched.

Privacy and storage

Local only: DevLife makes no network requests.
Redacted before storage: common API keys, tokens, JWTs, passwords, credentials in URLs, and PEM blocks are removed before an event is written.
Excluded paths: .env files, keys, secret directories, and node_modules are excluded by default.
Inspectable and removable: data is newline-delimited JSON in VS Code global storage, keyed by workspace; export and purge commands are included.
Finite retention: events older than 180 days are removed by default; set retention to 0 to keep them indefinitely.

Performance and quality

DevLife has no runtime npm dependencies. The first public MVP targets smooth recall with 10,000 events: extension activation under 2 seconds, ordinary keyword/time searches under 100 ms, and no perceptible typing lag while capture is enabled.

Run the repeatable synthetic benchmark after compiling:

npm run benchmark

Run the automated checks with:

npm test
npm run compile

Project status

DevLife is pre-release. The model-free capture, storage, sessions, and matching-history workflow are the active product direction. Before public release, the project will add Extension Host smoke tests, package-install verification, and performance regression checks.

Contributing

Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request. The guiding rules are simple: privacy is non-negotiable, capture must never stall the editor, and every product-facing change must update this README and its relevant documentation.

DevLife Assistant

Marvin M Varghese