last-run

README

LastRun

A small CLI for tracking when tasks last ran — start/done times, history, duration thresholds, and an interactive TUI status view.

Overview

LastRun is built for cron jobs, scheduled scripts, and any recurring operation where you want to know when it last finished and whether it's due to run again. State is kept in a single SQLite file at a platform-appropriate location (SQLite is compiled in via the pure-Go modernc.org/sqlite driver, so the binary is statically linked with no runtime dependencies):

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/lastrun/data.db
• Linux: ~/.local/share/lastrun/data.db
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\lastrun\data.db

Override the path with --db-path or the LASTRUN_DB_PATH environment variable. See lastrun --help for details.

Features

• Record start and completion times for any task by ID
• check exits non-zero when a task is overdue — drop it into cron / shell pipelines to gate work
• Interactive status TUI with sortable columns, per-task history, and duration stats
• --json snapshot for scripts and dashboards
• Configurable log retention with automatic cleanup on every done/update
• Log archival with confirmation prompt
• Shell tab completion (bash, zsh, fish, powershell)
• --quiet flag for non-interactive use

Installation

Pre-built binaries

Download a release from the GitHub releases page. Builds are published for:

• lastrun-darwin-arm64 (Apple Silicon Mac)
• lastrun-darwin-amd64 (Intel Mac)
• lastrun-linux-amd64 (Linux x86-64)
• lastrun-linux-arm64 (Linux ARM64)
• lastrun-windows-amd64.exe (Windows x86-64)

Each binary includes a matching .sha256 checksum file.

From source

Requires Go (see go.mod for the version).

git clone https://github.com/eveenendaal/last-run.git
cd last-run
go build -o lastrun .
cp lastrun /usr/local/bin/

Or, with Task:

task install     # go install .

Quick start

# Record that a task is starting
lastrun start --id my-task

# ...do the work...

# Record completion (also records elapsed time if you called start first)
lastrun done --id my-task

# Look at the current state of every tracked task
lastrun status

# In a cron job: only run if the last successful run was more than 24h ago
lastrun --quiet check --id my-task --duration 24h || run-the-thing

Commands

start / done / update

start stamps the task with a start time and clears any previous last-run time. done (also aliased as update) stamps the last-run time and, if a start time was recorded, writes an elapsed-time entry to the log.

lastrun start --id backup
lastrun done  --id backup

The short flag -i works everywhere --id does.

check

Check whether a task is due to run again. Exits 0 if the task ran within the threshold, 1 if it's overdue (or has never run, or doesn't exist). The duration accepts h, d, w, and m suffixes (hours, days, weeks, months-of-30-days) — e.g. 24h, 7d, 2w, 3m.

lastrun check --id backup --duration 24h
echo $?     # 0 if not yet due, 1 if due

The threshold passed to check is persisted on the task, so the TUI status view can colour rows based on what that task considers stale.

status

With no flags, opens an interactive TUI showing every tracked task:

lastrun status

Keybindings inside the TUI:

Key	Action
↑ / ↓ (k/j)	Move selection
PgUp / PgDn	Page through the task list
← / → / Tab	Cycle sort column
s	Toggle ascending / descending sort
Enter / h	Drill into per-task history
d	Delete the selected task (asks to confirm)
r	Refresh now
?	Toggle the help overlay
q / Esc	Quit

For scripts and dashboards, use --json:

lastrun status --json

The status view sorts by last-run time by default; override with --sort task|status|duration|elapsed|last-run.

logs

Show the most recent completion log entries (each entry has a task ID, an end time, and the elapsed time between start and done):

lastrun logs                       # 20 most recent across all tasks
lastrun logs --id backup           # filter to one task
lastrun logs --id backup --limit 5 # cap at 5
lastrun logs --limit 0             # no limit

clear

Reset just the timing fields on a task without deleting its history:

lastrun clear --id backup

delete

Remove a task and every log entry attached to it:

lastrun delete --id backup

archive

Delete log entries older than a threshold. Defaults to the stored retention setting (or 30d if none is set). Pass --older-than to override.

lastrun archive                          # uses stored retention (default 30d)
lastrun archive --older-than 7d          # override to 7 days
lastrun archive --older-than 30d --yes   # skip confirmation
lastrun archive --id backup              # only for one task

set-retention

Set the log retention period for automatic cleanup. After this is set, every done/update call will automatically delete log entries older than the threshold. Pass off (or 0) to disable auto-cleanup.

lastrun set-retention 60d                # keep 60 days of logs
lastrun set-retention 2w                 # keep 2 weeks
lastrun set-retention off                # disable auto-cleanup

The retention setting can also be changed interactively via lastrun settings.

settings

Open an interactive TUI for viewing and editing stored settings (currently just log_retention):

lastrun settings

Keybindings inside the TUI:

Key	Action
Enter	Edit the selected setting (or save while editing)
Esc	Cancel the edit, or quit if not editing
Backspace	Delete a character while editing
?	Toggle the help overlay
q	Quit

reset

Drop and recreate the tasks table — wipes every task but keeps the task_log history. Mostly useful when the schema is in a weird state.

completion

Print a shell completion script (bash, zsh, fish, or powershell):

echo 'source <(lastrun completion zsh)' >> ~/.zshrc
lastrun completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/lastrun

Run lastrun completion --help for per-shell setup instructions.

Quiet mode

--quiet (-q) is a top-level flag — pass it before the subcommand to suppress informational output. Errors and exit codes are unchanged, which makes the flag safe to use in cron.

lastrun --quiet start --id backup
lastrun -q check --id backup --duration 24h

Examples

See the examples/ directory:

• basic_usage.sh — start / done / status / logs walkthrough
• cron_integration.sh — using check to gate work and start/done to record timing in a cron job

Development

The project uses Task to wrap the common Go invocations:

task test                          # go test ./...
task build                         # build dist/lastrun + SHA256 (native target)
GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 task build  # cross-compile for a specific target
task install                       # go install .
task status                        # run the status TUI against your local DB
task clean                         # remove dist/

Run task test before committing — that's what CI runs on every PR.

Project structure

last-run/
├── main.go                  # Entry point: cobra tree, run via fang
├── internal/
│   ├── cli/                 # cobra commands, dispatch, ShouldRunTask()
│   ├── db/                  # SQLite connection, schema, CRUD
│   ├── model/               # Task struct + persistence
│   ├── format/              # Duration parsing/formatting, RFC3339 helpers
│   ├── apperr/              # Error types
│   ├── display/             # JSON status, log table, ANSI colours
│   ├── tui/                 # Bubble Tea interactive status view
│   ├── settings/            # Bubble Tea interactive settings editor
│   ├── tuiutil/             # Shared TUI panels/overlays
│   └── version/             # Release version-bump helper
├── examples/                # Example shell scripts
├── docs/                    # Architecture notes
├── Taskfile.yml             # Task runner definitions
└── go.mod / go.sum

See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for a deeper architecture description.

Contributing

Contributions welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Author

Eric Veenendaal

Documentation

Overview

Command lastrun tracks when tasks were last run — start/complete times, history, duration thresholds, and an interactive status TUI. State is kept in a single SQLite database.