How to write a work journal in five minutes
A work journal you can still open at a review is a dated file with Hina's daily report and three sentences beside it. The report holds the apps, the window titles you chose to record, and the local commits. The sentences hold the decision, the result you checked by opening the file or the repository, and the thread still open. The journal adds what the report cannot capture; it need not list every window.
What you will need the page for later
Tomorrow you need the file you stopped in. A review months later needs a few named pieces you can still open. A raise conversation needs those pieces and one sentence on why they mattered. The commit subject stops at what changed. The page is doing all three jobs, so it has to stay short enough to scan.
Keeping a work log without writing all day is four lines for the next morning: what you did, what remains, where you are stuck, and the first step. This file is for months later. A skipped Tuesday stays a gap.
Why the journal lapses
Writing while the work is open means putting down the cursor, the file, and the unfinished reason. The urgent task takes the slot, and the line stays empty. By evening the screen is the last window, and the morning's document title takes real effort to recall.
A page that asks for goals, a rating, and the whole day's story turns the five minutes into more work. After two blank days, the file looks like a reconstruction, and that is the entry you skip. The report already holds the names. Your sentence is the part it cannot know.
Three sentences in five minutes
For today, choose Today's report in the menu bar menu. The item's shortcut is Command-D, and it returns to today before generating the report. On Day, Daily report uses the day on screen. For an earlier day, use the chevron labeled Previous, or Command-[, then Daily report. Hina --daily takes today, yesterday, or a date such as 2026-08-23.
Press Copy, or Export Markdown. The save panel suggests a name such as report-2026-08-23.md. In Chinese the suggested name starts with 日报- and the same date. Keep the file with the journal. Hina has no notes field, so the three sentences sit above the report or below it. The Copy button's tooltip reads Plain Markdown you can paste into any AI to ask about this day. Local records only.
The first sentence is the decision or the conversation. Meetings and the words on a page stay outside the report. The second names what you checked: a subject under Local commit record, a path under Files touched, or a document title. The third is the open thread. If In progress and unconfirmed names the repository, with uncommitted changes or commits and no tag, keep that line as the working-tree reminder. If the section is missing, write the thread yourself. App durations stay in the report.
How the daily report is put together
A Hina day runs from 4:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. Work at 1:00 a.m. stays on the previous report, and the heading Daily report includes the weekday. Sessions hold the app name, the span, and counts of keystrokes, clicks, and scrolls. Typed characters are omitted, and Hina takes no screenshots. Titles and paths need Record window titles and page paths under Settings, Privacy. A browser address keeps scheme, host, and path. Query and fragment are removed before saving.
Git reads folders you add under Settings, Data, in Project folders used in reports. A new install scans no repositories until a folder is added, and the read is local commits. Pull requests, issues, and release pages are outside it. On Privacy, Read agent sessions, Read shell history, and AI usage metadata start off. They are read for the report and are not copied into hina.sqlite. An agent line is your prompt in Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, or Cursor. A shell line is the command and subcommand, such as brew install, without arguments. Model and token counts stay in memory for that report.
The summary shows first. Show details opens Evidence, and Copy and Export Markdown include it. With material present you can see Work that day, Confirmed outcomes, In progress and unconfirmed, Worth a look today or Worth a look that day, Rhythm of the day, Attention, and Closing the day. Rhythm uses Small hours, Morning, Midday, Afternoon, and Evening. After midnight and before 4:00 a.m. is Small hours on the previous report. Evidence can open with a Commits today went mostly to line and show Projects, with Project, At keyboard, Commits, Commit signals, Workspace, and Sessions if an agent session was seen, plus Local commit record, Other activity, Sent out into the world, Commands you ran, Files touched, and AI sessions outside repositories. Empty headings are omitted. Confirmed outcomes is a local version tag, and any Release is a separate check.
When the report and the day disagree
Quit Hina, or choose Pause recording, and the stretch is a gap. No Hina recording this day means the collector was stopped, and a later editor session leaves that hour empty. When the opening says Hina's local duration is unavailable, the store could not be read. A partial failure adds the note that some records could not be fully read and the report may be incomplete. Last daily report, on Settings, Data, can show git unavailable, agent history unavailable, or shell unavailable.
Confirmed outcomes stays empty when the day has commits but no local version tag. Those commits sit under In progress and unconfirmed as commit evidence. Call it delivered only after you open the repository, the site, or the file. Sent out into the world records how long you stayed on a writing or submission page, and publishing is outside it. With agent history on, the latest request can carry Outcome unconfirmed, unless that repository has a commit within 30 minutes after the request. Match the second sentence to a subject, a file, or a title in Show details.
The trial is seven days of use. General shows how many remain. After it, Daily report, Week, and Hina --daily need a license. The locked report says Hina never stopped recording. Today's Day view and Trail stay readable. Activate, opened from Manage on the License row in General, takes the key from your purchase email. Recording, Export CSV, and Privacy stay available.
Where the sentences live
Clear records deletes Hina's records and pauses until Resume recording. Exports, the journal, repositories, and AI conversation files remain, and so does hina.sqlite if you remove the app. Show in Finder, beside Your data stays here on Data, selects the database. Note bodies are not collected. With titles enabled, a note title can be stored.
App name only for password managers is marked Always on. 1Password and Keychain keep the app name and the duration, and their titles and URLs stay out of the store. Private windows start as app name only. Hide titles containing these words is the pattern list. Choosing what a work tracker can see covers those switches. Only three clicks connect to the network, and the requests carry no activity records: the checkout page in the browser, a POST to live.dodopayments.com/licenses/activate with the key and this Mac's short id, and Check for Updates…, a GET of https://hina.day/version.json that reads the version number. Hand the report to a chat, Claude Code, or Codex, and the receiver's rules apply. If a local activity log is forbidden, write from commits and memory.
Roll the week up without rewriting it
Weeks start on Monday, and Sunday night stays Sunday because the day ends at 4:00 a.m. Week shows where the time went. Hina --weekly is the file to keep beside the journal. No date means the seven days end on the current workday. A date such as 2026-08-23 is the last day. The command rejects --json, uses your chosen folders and enabled histories, and skips GitHub.
The title is Week in review, with both dates. It asks first for the work that continued, then for the changes the records support. Prompts are intent, commits are changes, a version tag confirms the tag, and a missing stretch stays unknown. Seven-day totals lists active time, deep work, and projects, then Work across the week and the seven reports. If a day failed to read, weekly totals and project time are unavailable.
One line per thread that crossed days, from the three sentences, checked on Work across the week. A weekly review that starts from what actually happened compares that list with a plan. An incomplete day, or No Hina recording this day, stays unknown there.