dckc
65199cafa7
Reconstruct past activity from an artifact's mtime: day-in-repos.sh lists one day's commits and reflog entries (pulls, checkouts, clones: local events git log never shows) across every repo locate knows. Generated-by: Claude Opus 5.5
76 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
76 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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name: what-was-i-doing
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description: What was I doing on <date>? Reconstruct past activity on this machine — use when the operator asks what they were doing on a day, where a stray file / install / symlink came from, or "why is this here?"; when a timestamp (ls, stat, cache dir) is the only clue. Correlates file mtimes with git commits and reflogs across every repo `locate` finds.
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---
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# What was I doing? Timestamps as a diary
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The machine already keeps a diary; it's just scattered. A mystery artifact
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(a stray `~/.bun`, an odd symlink, a cache dir) carries an mtime. Line that
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time up against git activity across all repos, and the project usually
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falls out within a few minutes.
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## 1. Pin the clue's timestamp to the minute
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```sh
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ls -la --time-style=+'%F %H:%M' ~/.bun ~/.bun/* ~/.local/bin/bunx
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```
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Look at the artifact *and its neighbors*: the directory, its children, and
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anything that points at it (symlink targets, `readlink`). The newest mtime
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inside a cache says when it was last used. Caches also say *what* was
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used: `ls ~/.bun/install/cache`, `~/.npm/_cacache`, `~/.cache/pip`.
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A cache full of `@vitejs`, `@reduxjs`, `@tailwindcss` means a frontend
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build.
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## 2. Sweep every repo for that day
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[day-in-repos.sh](day-in-repos.sh) lists commits *and reflog entries* for
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one day across every repo in the `locate` database. Reflog is the important
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half: pulls, checkouts, rebases, and amends are local-only, never show in
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`git log`, and are often exactly what you did that day.
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```sh
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.agents/skills/what-was-i-doing/day-in-repos.sh 2026-05-25 | grep -v heartbeat
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.agents/skills/what-was-i-doing/day-in-repos.sh 2026-05-25 --author=dckc
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```
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- Extra args go to `git log`. `--author` cuts upstream and bot commits, but
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reflog rows are never filtered. They're always yours.
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- A commit shared by several clones/worktrees prints once, listing them all.
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- Reflog begins at `clone: from <url>` and is pruned by `git gc` (default
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90 days, 30 for unreachable), so older days may be patchy. The mtime of
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`.git/FETCH_HEAD` gives the last fetch even when the reflog doesn't.
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- The `locate` DB is rebuilt nightly. Repos created today are missing;
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`sudo updatedb` if that matters.
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- Filter noise with `grep -v`. Bot heartbeats and dependabot bumps
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flood some repos.
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## 3. Correlate, then confirm in the candidate repo
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Look for repo activity within minutes of the artifact's mtime. Then confirm
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inside that repo: does it reference the tool (`git grep -i bun`, CI
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workflows, lockfiles), and do its build outputs (`node_modules`, `dist`)
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carry matching mtimes?
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Report it as a timeline table: time, event, source. Say which links
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are evidence and which are inference ("probably linked by hand").
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## Other diaries, when git is quiet
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- `journalctl --user --since ... --until ...`: user units, systemd-run.
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- Shell history: `~/.bash_history` has timestamps only if `HISTTIMEFORMAT`
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was set; `.tmp/*.script` typescripts (see the watchme skill).
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- File mtimes broadly: `find ~ -xdev -newermt 2026-05-25 ! -newermt
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2026-05-26 -not -path '*/node_modules/*' -not -path '*/.cache/*'`
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([fselect](https://github.com/jhspetersson/fselect) does the same in SQL,
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if installed).
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## Worked example
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`~/.local/bin/bunx` → `~/.bun/bin/bun` (1.3.14), both 2026-05-25 12:27.
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The sweep showed `projects/pinchtab` reflog: pull 12:19, forced-update
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12:35, checkout `v0.13.0` 12:36. `pinchtab/dashboard/` has a `bun.lock`,
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CI runs `bun install`, and `dashboard/node_modules` was created at 12:28.
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Conclusion: bun was installed to build pinchtab's dashboard for v0.13.0.
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