Feature Request: WakaTime Integration for Time Tracking

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Jan 13, 2026 by yuvrajangadsingh Closed Feb 23, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

Summary

Add WakaTime integration to Codex CLI to track coding time spent in sessions. This would send heartbeats to the local wakatime-cli when files are read/written, enabling developers to track their AI-assisted coding time alongside regular coding activity.

Motivation

  • Consistency with Claude Code: Claude Code already has WakaTime support, making this a natural addition for Codex CLI
  • Developer productivity tracking: Many developers use WakaTime to track their coding time across different tools and projects
  • AI coding metrics: WakaTime supports --ai-line-changes flag to track lines added/changed by AI assistants

Proposed Implementation

I have a working implementation ready on my fork that includes:

Configuration

Opt-in via ~/.codex/config.toml:

[wakatime]
enabled = true
# Optional overrides:
# cli_path = "~/.wakatime/wakatime-cli"
# project = "my-project"

Architecture

  • New codex-wakatime crate with WakaTimeTracker struct
  • Rate limiting: 1 heartbeat per minute per file (writes bypass limit)
  • Integrates with SessionServices in codex-core
  • Hooks into file operations via ToolEmitter::emit() for patch apply events
  • Spawns wakatime-cli in background (non-blocking)

WakaTime CLI invocation

~/.wakatime/wakatime-cli \
  --entity /path/to/file \
  --plugin "codex-cli/1.0" \
  --project "project-name" \
  --write  # for write operations

Files Changed

  • codex-rs/wakatime/ (new crate)
  • codex-rs/Cargo.toml (workspace)
  • codex-rs/core/Cargo.toml
  • codex-rs/core/src/config/types.rs
  • codex-rs/core/src/config/mod.rs
  • codex-rs/core/src/state/service.rs
  • codex-rs/core/src/codex.rs
  • codex-rs/core/src/tools/events.rs

Testing

All existing tests pass, plus 3 new unit tests for the wakatime crate.

Happy to submit a PR once this feature request is approved.

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

codengine · 7 months ago

I don't think that a time tracker belongs to an agentic CLI tool. It dilutes its main purpose, which is to provide an efficient agentic environment. Moreover, it's a niche feature which would need to be maintained.

Lastly, when I compare the "burden" with the tiny bit convenience (who counts working time of agents anyway), I don't think it's a good idea.

etraut-openai contributor · 6 months ago

This feature request hasn't received any upvotes, so I'm closing it.

alexbadoi · 5 months ago

we are looking for ways to measure human output vs machine output and this is exactly what we need - via codex app directly with integration even better

etraut-openai contributor · 5 months ago

@alexbadoi, this feature request has been closed because it didn't receive enough upvotes. If you'd like to open a new one with a different title and description, you're welcome to do so. Sometimes feature requests don't gain upvotes because of the way they are worded, and a change in the description or title can attract more attention. Then again, it's possible that very few Codex users actually want or need this feature.