CodeHeat

A Visual Studio Code extension that tracks how much time you actually spend in each project and each file, and paints that time back onto the file explorer as a heatmap.

Everything stays on your machine. There is no account, no server, no sync and no telemetry — the extension writes a single JSON file into VS Code's own extension storage directory and nothing leaves it.

What it does

Per-project and per-file time tracking. A 30-second heartbeat credits time to the file you are currently working in, but only while you are actually active. Typing, moving the cursor and switching editors all count as activity.
Idle detection. After a configurable period with no editor activity (3 minutes by default) the heartbeat stops crediting time, so a session left open overnight does not turn into eight tracked hours.
Explorer heatmap. Every file that has tracked time gets a badge from 1 to 5 in the explorer, coloured blue → green → yellow → orange → red. The scale is relative to the hottest file in that project, so it shows where the work went rather than an absolute number. Hovering a file shows the exact time.
Status bar clock. The left of the status bar shows the total time tracked in the current project. Click it to open a summary.
Summary view. A panel listing the 25 hottest files in the project as a bar chart, plus the project total.
Export and clear. Export the whole dataset as JSON, or wipe the data for the current project only.

Time is attributed to a file only when that file belongs to an open workspace folder. Files opened outside a workspace folder are not tracked.

Requirements

Visual Studio Code 1.85.0 or newer.

That is the whole list. The extension is plain JavaScript against the VS Code API with no runtime dependencies and no build step.

Installing

The extension is not on the Marketplace. Two ways to install it:

Copy it into the extensions folder

git clone https://github.com/dualfroz/codeheat.git ~/.vscode/extensions/codeheat

Then restart VS Code.

Or package it into a .vsix

npx @vscode/vsce package
code --install-extension codeheat-0.1.0.vsix

Commands

Open the command palette and search for "CodeHeat":

Command	What it does
CodeHeat: Show Time Summary	Opens the per-file bar chart for the current project
CodeHeat: Toggle Tracking	Pauses or resumes tracking; the status bar shows the state
CodeHeat: Export Data as JSON	Writes the full dataset to a file you choose
CodeHeat: Clear Data for This Project	Deletes tracked data for the current project only

Settings

Setting	Default	Meaning
`codeheat.idleThresholdMinutes`	`3`	Minutes of no editor activity before tracking pauses
`codeheat.heatmapEnabled`	`true`	Show the heat badges in the file explorer

Where the data lives

A single file, codeheat-data.json, inside VS Code's global storage directory for this extension. On Linux that is usually:

~/.config/Code/User/globalStorage/foksiu-local.codeheat/codeheat-data.json

The structure is straightforward — projects keyed by their absolute workspace path, each with a total and a map of workspace-relative file paths to seconds:

{
  "projects": {
    "/home/you/work/api": {
      "label": "api",
      "totalSeconds": 7230,
      "files": { "src/server.js": 4100, "README.md": 300 }
    }
  }
}

Because projects are keyed by absolute path, moving a project directory starts a new entry rather than continuing the old one.

Tested on

Linux Mint 22.2 with the Cinnamon desktop, VS Code 1.85+. Nothing in the extension is platform-specific, so it should work anywhere VS Code runs, but that is the only environment it has actually been used in.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

3.8 KiB Raw Blame History