Dev Chronicle

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name: dev-chronicle description: Generate narrative chronicles of developer work from git history, session transcripts, and memory files. Use when the user asks "what did I do today/this week", wants a work summary, daily/weekly chronicle, standup notes, or portfolio narrative. Also triggers on "chronicle", "dev diary", "work story", "recap", or "standup".

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DevChronicle — Narrative Engineering Journal

DevChronicle generates prose chronicles of developer work — not dashboards, not metrics, not bullet lists. In the age of AI agents writing code, measuring keystrokes is meaningless. What matters is what you *decided*, what you *killed*, and where you're *going*.

The output is narrative: first person, honest, the way you'd tell a friend what you built today.

Setup

On first use, check for {baseDir}/config.json. If it doesn't exist, create it by asking the user:

{
  "projectDirs": ["~/Projects"],
  "projectDepth": 3,
  "memoryDir": null,
  "sessionsDir": null
}

projectDirs: directories to scan for git repos (array, supports ~)

projectDepth: how deep to search for .git folders (default: 3)

memoryDir: path to OpenClaw memory files, or null to auto-detect (/memory)

sessionsDir: path to session transcripts, or null to auto-detect (~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions)

Gathering Data

Run the gather script to collect raw data for a period:

bash {baseDir}/scripts/gather.sh [YYYY-MM-DD] [days]

Examples:

bash {baseDir}/scripts/gather.sh — today only

bash {baseDir}/scripts/gather.sh 2026-02-19 7 — week ending Feb 19

The script reads {baseDir}/config.json for paths. If no config exists, it falls back to ~/Projects (depth 3) and auto-detects OpenClaw directories.

After gathering, read the output and generate a chronicle.

Data Sources (priority order)

1. Git History (primary signal) — commits across all repos in configured directories 2. Memory Files — memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md files contain decisions, context, things worth remembering 3. Session Transcripts — JSONL files from OpenClaw sessions; richest context but heavy. Scan metadata line first, only read relevant sessions. 4. External Tools (optional) — Trello, Notion, calendar, etc. Enrichment, not primary.

Generating the Chronicle

Voice

Critical: Read {baseDir}/references/voice-profile.md before generating any chronicle. The voice IS the product.

If the user hasn't customized their voice profile, use the template and ask if they want to personalize it. A chronicle without voice is just a changelog.

Core rules (regardless of voice profile):

Decisions > tasks. What got rejected matters as much as what shipped.

No corporate speak. No "leveraged", "synergized", "deliverables", "open threads", "action items".

Include what was NOT done — kills, pivots, and rejected approaches are part of the story.

Emotional beats matter — the satisfaction, frustration, surprise. These are human signals.

Be personal. A chronicle should sound like the developer wrote it, not their project manager. If it reads like a status report, rewrite it.

Structure is a suggestion, not a cage. If the day had one big theme, write one section. If it was chaos, let it be chaotic. Don't force headers.

Formats

Daily Chronicle (default — aim for ~500-800 words, not a novel)

# Chronicle — [Date]
[Opening: set the scene in 1-2 punchy sentences]
[Theme 1]
[Narrative: what happened, why, what got killed or rejected, how it felt]
[Theme 2]
[...]
[Weave metrics naturally: "12 commits later..." not a stats block at the end]
[End with what's unfinished — but as narrative, not a TODO list]

Rules:

Daily = tight. One screen of text. Save the epic for weekly.

No "Metrics" section. If commit count matters, weave it in. "67 commits across two days" belongs in a sentence, not a table.

No "Open Threads" or "Next Steps". If something's unfinished, say it where it fits: "El Press Kit sigue esperando que Angélica suba el PDF." Done.

Numbers without story are noise. "5 deploys" means nothing. "Deployed 5 times because the server kept OOM-killing on a 914MB box" means something.

Weekly Chronicle — roll up daily themes into arcs. This one CAN be long. Emphasize direction and pivots over individual tasks.

Standup — telegraphic: yesterday / today / blockers. Three bullets max each.

Portfolio Narrative — third person, present tense, for LinkedIn/CV/case studies. Punchy and honest, not marketing-speak.

Direction/Execution Ratio

When enough data exists (weekly+), calculate and mention:

Spec lines vs code lines — are you building or planning?

Commits vs decisions — activity vs impact

Kills — what got cut and why (kills show taste)

Pivots — direction changes and their reasoning

This is not a KPI. It's a mirror.

On first use, check for {baseDir}/config.json. If it doesn't exist, create it by asking the user:

{
  "projectDirs": ["~/Projects"],
  "projectDepth": 3,
  "memoryDir": null,
  "sessionsDir": null
}

projectDirs: directories to scan for git repos (array, supports ~)

projectDepth: how deep to search for .git folders (default: 3)

memoryDir: path to OpenClaw memory files, or null to auto-detect (/memory)

sessionsDir: path to session transcripts, or null to auto-detect (~/.openclaw/agents/main/sessions)