Mahakala is just a small command-line application which is able to query a NovaTime© time tracking system for your state (present/absent).

My current employer is using a time tracking system. And I, not being used to a punch clock, keep forgetting to "punch in" in the morning or after the lunch break which means I'm essentially working for free then. So I was looking for way to see my time tracking state in the menu bar of my mac. BitBar is an excellent way of adding information to your menu bar, but how to get the information from our NovaTime© installation?

In addition to the practical reason mentioned above, I was also looking for an excuse to try out monad transformers or to be more precise ReaderT as way to improve the testability of effectful code.

In our home directory you have to create a file called .mahakala. The content of the file should be JSON of the following schema:

{"userName": "1234", "password": "secret", "url": "http://yourLocalNovaTimeInstallation/cgi-bin/htm_term.cgi"}

where userName is the account name/number which you normally use to sign in. password does not need any explanation and url should point to your local NovaTime© installation.

After that you can use run mahakala and it should output the following:

• 💓 – The system considers you being present
• 💔 – The system considers you being absent
• 💥 - Mahakala was not able to fetch the state during error, e.g. no network connection

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