Outline

A productivity toolkit for capturing, planning, tracking, and reviewing tasks and ideas. Each command category maintains its own timestamped log file, so you can organize entries by purpose — plans, reviews, reminders, tags, timelines, and more. Includes built-in statistics, multi-format export, full-text search, and weekly review support.

All operations are logged with timestamps and stored locally in flat files for easy inspection and portability.

Commands

Command	Description
`outline add <text>`	Add a general entry (or show recent entries with no args)
`outline plan <text>`	Record a plan or goal
`outline track <text>`	Track progress on an item
`outline review <text>`	Log a review or reflection
`outline streak <text>`	Record a streak or habit check-in
`outline remind <text>`	Set a reminder note
`outline prioritize <text>`	Log a priority decision
`outline archive <text>`	Archive an item for later reference
`outline tag <text>`	Tag or categorize an entry
`outline timeline <text>`	Record a timeline event or milestone
`outline report <text>`	Log a report or summary
`outline weekly-review <text>`	Perform or record a weekly review
`outline stats`	Show summary statistics across all categories
`outline export <fmt>`	Export all data in json, csv, or txt format
`outline search <term>`	Full-text search across all log files
`outline recent`	Show the 20 most recent activity entries
`outline status`	Health check — version, data dir, entry counts, disk usage
`outline help`	Show the built-in help message
`outline version`	Print the current version

How Entry Commands Work

Every entry command (add, plan, track, review, streak, remind, prioritize, archive, tag, timeline, report, weekly-review) follows the same pattern:

With arguments: Appends a timestamped entry (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM|<text>) to the corresponding .log file and shows the new total count
Without arguments: Shows the 20 most recent entries from that category's log file

Data Storage

All data is stored in ~/.local/share/outline/ by default.

Files created in the data directory:

add.log, plan.log, track.log, etc. — One log file per command category, each containing timestamped entries in YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM|<text> format
history.log — Audit trail of every command executed with timestamps
export.json / export.csv / export.txt — Generated by the export command

Export Formats

json — Array of objects with type, time, and value fields
csv — Header row (type,time,value) followed by data rows
txt — Human-readable sections grouped by category

Requirements

bash 4.0 or later (uses set -euo pipefail, local variables)
grep — used by the search command for case-insensitive matching
Standard POSIX utilities — date, cat, echo, mkdir, wc, du, head, tail, basename
No external API keys or network access required
No Python or Node.js dependencies

When to Use

Daily task capture — Quickly jot down tasks, ideas, or observations throughout the day using add or plan, then review with recent
Habit tracking and streaks — Use streak to check in on daily habits and stats to see your consistency over time
Weekly reviews and retrospectives — Use weekly-review to log reflections at the end of each week, then search to find patterns
Project timeline management — Use timeline to record milestones and report to log progress summaries for stakeholders
Exporting data for analysis — Use export json to pipe structured data into jq, dashboards, or spreadsheets for deeper analysis

Examples

# Add a task and a plan
outline add "Set up CI pipeline for new repo"
#=> [Outline] add: Set up CI pipeline for new repo
#=> Saved. Total add entries: 1

outline plan "Q2 roadmap: launch v2.0 by June"
#=> [Outline] plan: Q2 roadmap: launch v2.0 by June
#=> Saved. Total plan entries: 1

# Track progress and tag it
outline track "CI pipeline: tests passing, deploy step WIP"
outline tag "ci-pipeline: infrastructure"

# Set a reminder
outline remind "Team standup at 10am tomorrow"
#=> [Outline] remind: Team standup at 10am tomorrow
#=> Saved. Total remind entries: 1

# View statistics across all categories
outline stats
#=> === Outline Stats ===
#=>   add: 1 entries
#=>   plan: 1 entries
#=>   ...
#=>   Total: 5 entries
#=>   Data size: 4.0K

# Export everything as JSON
outline export json
#=> Exported to /home/user/.local/share/outline/export.json (245 bytes)

# Search across all logs
outline search "pipeline"
#=> Searching for: pipeline
#=>   --- add ---
#=>     2025-03-18 14:30|Set up CI pipeline for new repo

Configuration

The data directory is hardcoded to ~/.local/share/outline/. To use a custom location, modify the DATA_DIR variable in the script.

How It Works

On every invocation, the tool ensures the data directory exists (mkdir -p)
The first argument selects the command via a case dispatch
Entry commands append a pipe-delimited line (timestamp|text) to their category-specific log file
Every command also appends to history.log for auditing
stats iterates over all .log files to produce aggregate counts
export reads all .log files and writes a combined output in the chosen format
All output goes to stdout for easy piping and redirection