devlog

the headless standup programmer's development log writing tool

structure

a devlog consists of many coding or communication sessions.

the current development session is written at the top of the file.

older sessions are towards the end of the file.

the first session is the one at the bottom, scroll down at the end of the file.

sessions are separated with beginning and end "devlog DSL" entries,

these must be entered at the start of the line.

how to write?

like a book, top down, but always start a new session on top of the file, so that Your customer sees the latest entry there.

devlog DSL

#DD.MM.YYYY HH:MM:SS CodingSession::END

devlog text...

#DD.MM.YYYY HH:MM:SS CodingSession::BEGIN

using the devlog CLI

to parse a devlog file explicitly:

devlog /path/devlog_file.markdown

to run in current folder (default), expecting file devlog.markdown to be present in it:

devlog

run in current folder and start coding session:

devlog b

run in current folder and stop coding session:

devlog e

run in current folder and check session status:

devlog s

run in current folder and commit to git repo (if any):

devlog commit

run in current folder and push to git repo:

devlog push

run in current folder and write out info.markdown then commit&push git repo:

devlog save

this one is nice for pushing to a github project, since the CEO can now read the devlog inside a special git branch. the branch should contain only the devlog. one can check out two copies of the git project and have the devlog branch always open in one, while working on code in the other.

run in current folder and write out info.markdown, copy devlog to README.markdown so it is rendered on github project/branch frontpage, then commit&push git repo:

devlog saver

write out a weekly timesheet for the current week, using a ERB template producing html + PDF:

devlog w

writing out the week before the current one (and so on):

devlog w 1

settings

the settings file is called .devlog.yml.

it can be placed into a project folder from where one wants to be able to call devlog.

this way you can keep your devlog.markdown anywhere on disk.

devlog_file represents the location of the devlog text file. weekly_timesheet_template represents the location of the ERB weekly timesheet template, if you don't provide one, there's a default. convert_to_pdf_command represents the command used to convert the generated html into a signable PDF.

file paths should be relative to .devlog.yml.

example settings .devlog.yml:

devlog_file: ../info/devlog.markdown
weekly_timesheet_template: ../info/weekly_timesheet.erb.html
convert_to_pdf_command: wkhtmltopdf --dpi 400  --viewport-size 600x800 --orientation Landscape