plainlog

Appends a timestamped entry to a plain-text daily log file.

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What it does

• Appends timestamped entries to today's log file
• Accepts piped input, so shell output can be logged without retyping
• Shows today's entries when run with no arguments
• Shows yesterday's log with --yesterday
• Shows this week's entries with --week
• Shows last N entries across all days with --tail N
• Shows a specific day's log with --date YYYY-MM-DD
• Appends to a specific day's log with --on YYYY-MM-DD "text"
• Searches all logs with --search TERM
• Prints today's file path with --file
• Lets you override the log directory with --dir PATH or PLAINLOG_DIR

Files are plain text stored in ~/logs/ by default. One file per day, named YYYY-MM-DD.txt. No account, no database, no config required.

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Install

./install.sh

That creates ~/bin/ if needed, symlinks plainlog.py there as plainlog, makes it executable, and warns if ~/bin is not on your PATH.

Manual install:

chmod +x plainlog.py
mkdir -p ~/bin
ln -sf "$(pwd)/plainlog.py" ~/bin/plainlog

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Usage

# append an entry to today's log
plainlog "finished the config work"

# append from stdin or a pipe
printf 'captured deploy output' | plainlog
plainlog - <<'EOF'
wrapped up notes from stdin
EOF

# show today's log
plainlog

# show yesterday's log
plainlog --yesterday

# show this week's entries
plainlog --week

# show last 10 entries across all days
plainlog --tail 10

# show a specific day
plainlog --date 2026-04-07

# append to a past day
plainlog --on 2026-04-07 "wrote the incident notes"

# search all logs for a term
plainlog --search deploy

# print today's log file path
plainlog --file

# use a different log directory for one command
plainlog --dir ~/work-logs "captured meeting notes"

# set a custom default location
PLAINLOG_DIR=~/journal plainlog "wrote the draft"

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File format

Each day gets one file:

~/logs/2026-04-07.txt

Each entry is one line:

[14:38] shipped v1 docs

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Limitations

• Timestamps use local machine time
• Custom log directory support is local-only, via --dir or PLAINLOG_DIR
• Entries are stored exactly as typed after trimming outer whitespace
• Piped or stdin input is accepted, but multi-line input is stored as one raw block
• --date is read-only; use --on to append to a past date
• --tail scans back up to 90 days
• Append locking uses POSIX file locks; concurrent-write protection is strongest on Unix-like systems