My hours now write themselves every 15 minutes, from a 4B model that never leaves my Mac

Description and use

Automated time tracking on a Mac using a local Gemma 4 model, preserving privacy and eliminating manual logging.

Problem

The author could not track where hours were spent, had to guess timesheets, and disliked cloud apps watching screens.

Outcome

Automated, privacy‑preserving daily time tracking on a Mac, eliminating manual logging and cloud dependencies.

Workflow

• Collect front app and window title every 10 s
• Collect git branch, commit subjects and changed file names every 5 min for selected folders
• Every 15 min run local Gemma 4 (e4b) via Ollama to convert slot into blocks
• Validate blocks with code checks (evidence, project, topic, summary rules)
• Generate card with where‑was, today, yesterday, hours per project
• Copy timesheet line to clipboard
• Write Markdown journal page and hours CSV at day end

Evidence

Every 15 minutes Gemma 4 e4b, running in Ollama on the same Mac, turns each finished slot into blocks of work: a project, a topic and a short summary.

Source

No screenshots, no keystrokes, no clipboard reading, no browser history, no file contents. Nothing leaves my Mac.

Source

The collector reads the front app from NSWorkspace and the focused window's title through the Accessibility API.

Source