Selfwatcher

Tracks active window titles, keyboard inputs, mouse clicks, and scrolls.

Motivated by ulogme and wanting the same ability to track keyboard inputs in ActivityWatch.

What is tracked

Every 2 seconds, the scripts detect the current window class and title and associate all key presses and mouse inputs to that window. Keys are categorized (e.g., alphabets, ctrl, backspace) and mouse inputs are categorized as left clicks, right clicks, and scrolls. See KEYS_ARR for all categories. If the same window is detected, the keyboard and mouse counts are merged with the previous entry.

Every 1 minute, the collected data is written to the file at ~/.local/selfwatcher/YYYY/MM/YYYY-MM-dd.txt.

Sample output:

11:34:49;;Code;● README.md - selfwatcher - Visual Studio Code;time:2;k-az:5;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:0;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:0;k-arr:0;k-etr:0;k-spc:2;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:1;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:34:51;;Code;README.md - selfwatcher - Visual Studio Code;time:10;k-az:6;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:0;k-sft:0;k-ctl:2;k-del:0;k-cmd:0;k-arr:0;k-etr:0;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:1;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:35:01;;yakuake;Downloads : tmux: client — Yakuake;time:20;k-az:1;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:3;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:1;k-arr:2;k-etr:2;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:3;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:0;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:35:21;;Code;README.md - selfwatcher - Visual Studio Code;time:8;k-az:3;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:0;k-sft:0;k-ctl:2;k-del:0;k-cmd:1;k-arr:1;k-etr:0;k-spc:2;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:4;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:44
11:35:29;;yakuake;Downloads : tmux: client — Yakuake;time:2;k-az:1;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:1;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:1;k-arr:1;k-etr:0;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:1;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:35:31;;Code;README.md - selfwatcher - Visual Studio Code;time:2;k-az:2;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:0;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:2;k-arr:1;k-etr:0;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:1;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:35:33;;yakuake;Downloads : tmux: client — Yakuake;time:2;k-az:0;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:1;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:0;k-arr:4;k-etr:0;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:0;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:35:35;;Code;README.md - selfwatcher - Visual Studio Code;time:4;k-az:1;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:0;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:1;k-arr:0;k-etr:0;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:1;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:46
11:35:39;;yakuake;Downloads : tmux: client — Yakuake;time:2;k-az:1;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:0;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:1;k-arr:0;k-etr:0;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:2;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:35:41;;Code;README.md - selfwatcher - Visual Studio Code;time:2;k-az:1;k-09:0;k-spl:0;k-alt:0;k-sft:0;k-ctl:0;k-del:0;k-cmd:0;k-arr:0;k-etr:0;k-spc:0;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:0;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0
11:35:43;;Code;● README.md - selfwatcher - Visual Studio Code;time:6;k-az:12;k-09:0;k-spl:2;k-alt:0;k-sft:5;k-ctl:0;k-del:2;k-cmd:0;k-arr:1;k-etr:2;k-spc:1;k-tab:0;k-esc:0;k-nav:0;k-fun:0;k-oth:0;m-lc:0;m-rc:0;m-mc:0;m-srl:0

How to run

I'm running selfwatcher on macOS using nix-darwin and on NixOS with Plasma 6 inside UTM.

NixOS

{
  config,
  lib,
  pkgs,
  ...
}:

{
  options = {
    myPythonPkg = lib.mkOption {
      type = lib.types.package;
      default = pkgs.python3;
    };
    myPythonPkgs = lib.mkOption {
      type = lib.types.listOf lib.types.str;
      default = [ ];
    };
    myPython = lib.mkOption {
      type = lib.types.package;
      default = config.myPythonPkg.withPackages (ps: lib.attrsets.attrVals config.myPythonPkgs ps);
    };
  };

  config = {
    myPythonPkgs = [
      "pynput"
      "xlib"
    ];
    environment.systemPackages = [
      config.myPython
    ];

    systemd.services."selfwatcher" = {
      path = config.environment.systemPackages;
      after = [ "display-manager.service" ];
      wantedBy = [ "display-manager.service" ];
      serviceConfig = {
      Type = "simple";
      ExecStart = "${config.myPython}/bin/python /opt/projects/selfwatcher/selfwatcher.py";
      User = "myuser"; #FIXME
      Restart = "always";
      RestartSec = 10;
      };
    };
  };
}

On other systems, you may need to update xauth_files inside selfwatcher.py.

nix-darwin

Compile the code using swiftc selfwatcher.swift

{
  lib,
  pkgs,
  inputs,
  ...
}:
{
   launchd.user.agents.selfwatcher = {
    command = "/opt/projects/selfwatcher/selfwatcher";
    serviceConfig = {
      RunAtLoad = true;
      KeepAlive = true;
      StandardOutPath = "/opt/logs/selfwatcher.log";
      StandardErrorPath = "/opt/logs/selfwatcher.err";
    };
  };
}

Needs the accessibility permission.

Notes

• The scripts just collect daily data for now. Processing the raw inputs and visualizing them will come later.
• The scripts are specific to my setup and will likely need some updates on other systems.
• I also use a Firefox extension to track hostnames of websites open in Firefox.