How the Plugin Works
The PanDev Metrics plugin runs inside your IDE and collects activity data automatically. This page explains what the plugin tracks, what counts as activity, and where the data comes from.
What Counts as Activity
The plugin uses an event-driven architecture — there are no timers or background polling. An event is generated only when you perform a real action:
- Mouse click — clicking inside the editor or on UI elements.
- Typing — any keyboard input: writing code, editing, renaming, etc.
- Caret movement — navigating with arrow keys, Home/End, Page Up/Down, or any other text-cursor movement.
:::danger What is NOT activity
- Mouse cursor movement — simply moving the mouse pointer across the screen does not generate events and is not recorded.
- Having the IDE open — if the IDE is open but you are not interacting with it, no activity is recorded. An idle window produces zero events. :::
Activity Sources
The plugin displays activity from three separate sources:
| Source | Description |
|---|---|
| IDE | Activity captured by IDE plugins (IntelliJ IDEA, VS Code, etc.) — coding, navigation, refactoring. |
| BROWSER | Activity captured by the Chrome extension on whitelisted corporate domains — reading documentation, Jira, Confluence, etc. |
| CLI | Activity captured from command-line tools and terminal sessions — running commands, git operations, scripts. |
All three sources are visible in the plugin's activity panel inside the IDE, giving you a complete picture of your work session.
How Events Are Processed
- Event capture — the plugin registers each action and creates a JSON event with metadata (project, file, branch, cursor position, timestamp).
- Activity calculation — mathematical models analyse the gaps between events to determine active working time. If the gap is too long, the system considers it idle time.
- Task matching — the plugin reads the current Git branch name and automatically links activity to the corresponding task in your tracker (Jira, GitLab, etc.).
- Data delivery — events are sent to the PanDev Metrics server. If the server is unreachable, events are cached locally and synced automatically when the connection is restored.
What You See in the IDE
After the plugin is installed and you are logged in, it works silently in the background. You can check:
- Sync status — whether your data has been delivered to the server.
- Activity breakdown — time split by IDE, BROWSER, and CLI.
- Current session — live activity for the current working session.
No additional actions are required after the initial setup — the plugin handles everything automatically.