FlouState

Product Introduction

1. FlouState is a developer productivity tool that automatically tracks and categorizes coding activities into work types like creating, debugging, refactoring, and exploring through a VS Code extension. It provides data-driven insights about actual time distribution across development tasks without requiring manual timers or input.
2. The core value lies in revealing developers' true work patterns through AI-powered analysis of coding context, enabling optimization of workflows based on empirical data rather than subjective perceptions. It shifts productivity measurement from lines-of-code vanity metrics to meaningful problem-solving impact.

Main Features

1. Automatic Work Type Detection uses code context analysis to classify activities in real time, tracking time spent creating features (new code), debugging (error-driven edits), refactoring (structural improvements), and exploring (codebase navigation). This occurs through background monitoring of file changes, git operations, and IDE interactions.
2. Project/Branch-Level Analytics tracks time allocation across multiple repositories and git branches, generating leaderboards to identify time-intensive projects. This supports freelancers in billing accuracy and helps teams balance resource allocation between legacy systems and new feature development.
3. File-Level Work Breakdown provides per-file duration metrics with work type categorization, exposing bottlenecks like prolonged debugging sessions in specific modules. Developers can visualize which files require refactoring attention or documentation improvements based on time investment patterns.

Problems Solved

1. Addresses the cognitive bias where developers overestimate debugging/refactoring time by up to 50x, replacing guesswork with machine-observed data. Traditional self-tracking methods fail because manual timers disrupt flow states and human memory inaccurately recalls task durations.
2. Targets professional developers and engineering managers who need to audit time expenditure across projects, particularly those managing multiple codebases or freelancers tracking billable work.
3. Enables use cases like identifying unproductive hours through productivity pattern analysis, justifying tech debt reduction with refactoring time metrics, and balancing feature development versus maintenance work in sprint planning.

Unique Advantages

1. Unlike WakaTime that tracks tool usage duration, FlouState analyzes work intent by correlating code changes with git history, error logs, and file navigation patterns. This provides contextual awareness missing in keyboard-activity-based trackers.
2. Combines VCS integration with IDE interaction monitoring to detect work types - for example, classifying a session as "debugging" when frequent file switches occur between test failures and source files, accompanied by small iterative code changes.
3. Offers competitive privacy safeguards by processing raw data locally before anonymized aggregation, avoiding code storage, and enabling full data export/delete functionality. This contrasts with cloud-first trackers that centralize sensitive development data.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How does FlouState differ from WakaTime? FlouState focuses on work intent analysis rather than tool usage tracking, using git operations and code change patterns to categorize activities. While WakaTime shows "4h in VS Code," FlouState reveals "2h debugging auth.ts across 3 branches."
2. Is my code stored or analyzed? No source code is transmitted or stored - the extension analyzes code structure locally to detect work patterns, sending only anonymized metadata like file paths, work type durations, and branch names.
3. Does it support IDEs beyond VS Code? Currently, FlouState only operates as a VS Code extension due to deep IDE integration requirements, but future plans include JetBrains IDE support through dedicated plugins.