Effort Logging

How It Works

How It Works

Your project grade is based on hours of meaningful work per week, estimated from your Claude Code session transcripts. These transcripts are saved automatically to your repository’s .claude-sessions/ directory every time you commit.

To get credit for your work, you need to:

1. Use Claude Code in the terminal—not claude.ai in your browser
2. Commit and push at the end of every work session

That’s it. There’s nothing to submit or trigger manually.

What Gets Logged

What Gets Logged

Claude Code automatically records every conversation turn—your prompts, Claude’s responses, and all tool calls (file edits, terminal commands, etc.). These transcripts are what we use to estimate how much time you spent working.

Use Claude Code for Everything

Use Claude Code for Everything

This includes work that happens outside your code editor. If your app uses external services (like Firebase, Supabase, a REST API, etc.), ask Claude Code for step-by-step instructions rather than following a tutorial on your own. For example:

• Instead of reading the Supabase docs yourself, ask Claude: “I need to set up a Supabase project for my app. Walk me through the steps.”
• Instead of configuring Firebase in the console directly, ask Claude: “Help me set up Firebase Authentication for my app. What do I need to do in the Firebase console and in my code?”
• Instead of searching Stack Overflow, ask Claude: “My RecyclerView isn’t scrolling. Here’s my layout XML. What’s wrong?”

This way the conversation is logged—even if the actual work happens in a browser or dashboard—and we can see the time you spent figuring things out.

Common Mistakes

Common Mistakes

• Using claude.ai instead of Claude Code: The website doesn’t save session logs. Always use claude in the terminal.
• Forgetting to push: Your session logs only reach GitHub when you push. Commit and push at the end of every session.
• Working without Claude: If you spend an hour debugging by reading documentation on your own, that time isn’t captured. Route your questions through Claude Code instead.
• Long idle sessions: Having Claude Code open while you’re not actively working doesn’t count as effort. We measure meaningful interaction, not idle time.

Checking Your Logs

Checking Your Logs

Your session transcripts are stored in .claude-sessions/ in your repository. You can see them on GitHub by browsing to that directory. Each .jsonl file represents a session. If the directory is empty or the files haven’t been updated recently, your logs aren’t being saved—make sure you’re committing and pushing after each session.