worknow

A small local CLI that builds an automatically maintained view of active coding work across your machines.

It scans:

• configured project directories (direct children only — fast & predictable)
• per-repo: git branch, dirty state, last commit, recent commits within a window
• running claude, codex, gemini, openclaw, xcodebuild, gradle, npm/pnpm/yarn, plus anything you add
• optional openclaw sessions list / tasks list output when the binary is available

Output is two sidecar files at ~/.openclaw/workspace/:

• current-work.md — readable Markdown view, friendly for cross-machine browsing
• current-work.json — structured payload consumed by the native macOS menu bar app in mac/

Requires Python ≥ 3.11.

Install

git clone https://github.com/nvwalj/worknow.git
cd worknow
python3 -m pip install -e .

Then run:

worknow              # one-shot
worknow --watch 300  # refresh every 5 minutes (minimum 10s)
worknow --version

If editable install is inconvenient on a machine, the self-contained wrapper works without pip install:

./bin/worknow
ln -sf "$PWD/bin/worknow" ~/.local/bin/worknow

On macOS, install automatic refresh every 5 minutes via launchd:

./bin/install-launchd-macos

Uninstall it with:

./bin/uninstall-launchd-macos

Config

Config lives at ~/.config/worknow/config.toml. Run worknow --config-init to seed it with defaults.

Example:

output = "~/.openclaw/workspace/current-work.md"

project_roots = [
  "~/projects",
  "~/Project",
  "~/.openclaw/workspace",
]

process_keywords = [
  "claude", "codex", "gemini", "openclaw",
  "xcodebuild", "gradle", "npm", "pnpm", "yarn",
]

ignored_process_fragments = [
  "Google Chrome Helper",
  "chrome_crashpad_handler",
]

max_projects = 80
recent_commit_days = 7

If no config exists, worknow uses the defaults baked into cli.py.

Native macOS menu bar app

A small AppKit menu bar app lives in mac/. It reads the JSON sidecar the CLI writes and surfaces:

• a menu bar badge with the active task count — a "task" is a tracked git repo that is dirty OR has a coding agent process running inside it
• a draggable floating panel (click the menu bar icon to toggle) listing active repos and agent processes
• auto-refresh every 30 seconds; panel position persists across launches

Build & run:

cd mac
./build.sh             # compiles a single-file Swift binary (no Xcode project)
./worknow-mac          # run once, look in the menu bar

Auto-start at login:

./install-launchd-macos
./uninstall-launchd-macos   # to remove

The app only displays data — it does not run the scanner itself. Schedule the Python CLI (e.g. via bin/install-launchd-macos) so the JSON stays fresh.

Git sync across machines

This repo is self-contained — push your fork wherever, clone on each dev machine, and run pip install -e .. Machine-specific paths stay in ~/.config/worknow/config.toml and never touch git.

Development

python3 -m pip install -e '.[dev]'
pytest

License

MIT — see LICENSE.