Measure the time you spend waiting on builds

BuildMeter records how long you wait for Flutter, .NET, React (Vite, Create React App) and Next.js builds and dev servers, from the terminal, Rider, Visual Studio and your editor, until the app is up. Records are collected in ~/.buildmeter/events.jsonl; a macOS menu bar app and widget, and a Windows tray app, turn them into daily, weekly and monthly summaries.

Screenshots

The menu bar window (left) and the medium desktop widget, in full color and as it appears on the desktop when another window is in focus.

Components

Component	What it measures	Source
Terminal wrapper	A single buildmeter binary (macOS, Windows, Linux) behind thin zsh, bash and PowerShell shims. Run and dev commands are timed until the app reports it is ready; build commands are timed to the end. See the command table.	wrapper/, cli/
MSBuild hook	Every .NET project build, whether it comes from dotnet build, Rider or Visual Studio; design-time builds are skipped	cli/msbuild/
Rider plugin	How long it takes from pressing Run or Debug on a .NET project until the app is ready: Now listening on: for web, worker and Blazor apps, process start for console apps. Builds are recorded by the MSBuild hook.	rider-plugin/
Visual Studio extension	One record per solution build (Build, Rebuild; Clean is skipped) instead of one per project, and with F5 the time until the app is ready. While it is installed, the MSBuild hook skips builds inside Visual Studio.	visualstudio/
Editor extension	In VS Code, Cursor and Antigravity: debug sessions (Flutter, .NET, Node dev servers), build tasks, and commands typed in the integrated terminal through shell integration. Tags the editor's terminals so the wrapper and the MSBuild hook record the editor as the source.	vscode-extension/
macOS app + widget	Live timer in the menu bar, today's total, a 7-day chart, breakdown by project and source; small and medium desktop widgets	macos/
Windows tray app	The same window as the macOS app, opened from the notification area: live timer, today's total, a 7-day chart, breakdowns by technology, source and project, copy report and CSV. The tray icon shows a dot and the running time while a build is in progress.	windows/

Requirements

• macOS 14.0 or later
• Xcode (xcodebuild), only for building the app from source
• XcodeGen: brew install xcodegen, only for building the app from source
• zsh or bash (macOS, Linux, Git Bash) or PowerShell 5.1+ (Windows), for the terminal wrapper
• Windows 10 or 11 (x64 or arm64), for the tray app
• Go 1.23+, only for building the terminal wrapper from source
• .NET 8 SDK, only for building the Windows tray app from source
• JDK 21, only for building the Rider plugin from source; Visual Studio 2022 with the extension development workload, only for building the Visual Studio extension
• Node.js (the extension is packaged with npx) and VS Code 1.93+, Cursor or Antigravity, for the editor extension

Installation

Homebrew

brew install birhos/tap/buildmeter          # terminal wrapper
brew install --cask birhos/tap/buildmeter   # macOS app + widget

The formula installs the buildmeter wrapper without touching your ~/.zshrc. To enable tracking, add this line to ~/.zshrc:

source "$(brew --prefix)/share/buildmeter/buildmeter.zsh"

The cask installs the same unnotarized DMG described below, so the Gatekeeper step applies to it too.

macOS app (DMG)

1. Download BuildMeter-<version>.dmg from the Releases page. It is a universal build (Apple silicon and Intel) and does not need Xcode.

2. Open the DMG and drag BuildMeter into Applications.

3. The app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID or notarized, so Gatekeeper blocks it on first launch. Remove the quarantine flag:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/BuildMeter.app

   Alternatively, try to open the app once, then go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

4. Launch BuildMeter. To add the widget, right-click the desktop > Edit Widgets > "BuildMeter".

To verify the download, place the .sha256 file from the release next to the DMG and run shasum -a 256 -c BuildMeter-<version>.dmg.sha256.

The DMG contains only the app and widget. To install the prebuilt terminal wrapper without cloning the repository:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/birhos/BuildMeter/main/scripts/install-cli.sh | bash

Install the editor extension from the VS Code Marketplace or Open VSX (for Cursor, VSCodium and other Open VSX editors).

Windows (Scoop)

scoop install https://github.com/birhos/BuildMeter/releases/latest/download/buildmeter.json

The manifest installs the buildmeter wrapper, the tray app (Start menu > BuildMeter) and the MSBuild hook. To time terminal commands, add the line printed after installation to your PowerShell profile. To start the tray app at sign-in, turn on Girişte başlat in its menu.

The tray app is a single self-contained BuildMeter.exe (no .NET runtime needed). It is also attached to each release as BuildMeter-windows-x64.zip and BuildMeter-windows-arm64.zip. It is not code-signed, so SmartScreen may warn on first launch: click More info > Run anyway.

Rider and Visual Studio

Download BuildMeter-rider.zip and BuildMeter.vsix from the Releases page.

• Rider 2026.1+: Settings > Plugins > ⚙ > Install Plugin from Disk…, pick BuildMeter-rider.zip, restart Rider.
• Visual Studio 2022 / 2026: double-click BuildMeter.vsix, or run VSIXInstaller.exe BuildMeter.vsix.

Both need the MSBuild hook for build times (installed by install.sh --dotnet, install.ps1 or Scoop). To build them from source: cd rider-plugin && ./gradlew buildPlugin (JDK 21; add -PriderPath=/Applications/Rider.app to compile against a local Rider instead of downloading it) and, on Windows, msbuild visualstudio\BuildMeter.VisualStudio\BuildMeter.VisualStudio.csproj /restore /p:Configuration=Release.

From source

git clone https://github.com/birhos/BuildMeter.git
cd BuildMeter
scripts/install.sh

In an interactive terminal the script lets you pick components from a menu; the macOS app is always installed. To install specific components:

scripts/install.sh --all        # everything
scripts/install.sh --app-only   # only /Applications/BuildMeter.app
scripts/install.sh --cli-only   # only the wrapper (built with Go) + the ~/.zshrc and ~/.bashrc lines
scripts/install.sh --ext-only   # only the editor extension
scripts/install.sh --dotnet     # only the MSBuild hook for .NET builds (dotnet build, Rider)

On Windows, scripts\install.ps1 installs the terminal wrapper (built from source when Go is available, otherwise downloaded from the latest release), adds the shim to the PowerShell 5.1 and 7 profiles and to ~/.bashrc for Git Bash, installs the MSBuild hook (dotnet build, Rider, Visual Studio), and installs the tray app to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\BuildMeter (built from source when the .NET SDK is available) with a Start menu shortcut, starting it at sign-in:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\install.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\install.ps1 -NoApp       # without the tray app
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\install.ps1 -Uninstall   # add -Purge to delete records

After installing:

• Open a new terminal or run source ~/.zshrc.
• Run Developer: Reload Window in any open editor windows.
• To add the widget, right-click the desktop > Edit Widgets > "BuildMeter".

Configuration

Code signing. Replace DEVELOPMENT_TEAM in macos/project.yml with your own Apple Developer Team ID (Xcode > Settings > Accounts). If signing with a developer certificate fails, install.sh falls back to local signing (Sign to Run Locally).

Environment variables.

Variable	Effect
BUILDMETER_DISABLE	When non-empty, the wrapper and the MSBuild hook record nothing and commands run directly: export BUILDMETER_DISABLE=1
BUILDMETER_DATA_DIR	Data directory used by the terminal wrapper, the extension, the menu bar app and the tray app (default ~/.buildmeter, %USERPROFILE%\.buildmeter on Windows). The widget always reads ~/.buildmeter.

Quick start

Run your commands as usual; the wrapper times them in the background:

flutter run -d ios
fvm flutter build apk
dotnet run
npm run dev

You can also call the wrapper directly, without the shell integration:

~/.buildmeter/bin/buildmeter track flutter run -d ios

Sessions interrupted with Ctrl+C are recorded as cancelled, and sessions that exit with an error as failed. Commands that match no profile (npm install, dotnet restore …) run directly without being recorded.

To view the raw records in your editor, run BuildMeter: Olay kayıtlarını aç from the command palette.

Tracked commands

Technology	Command	Kind	Recorded until
Flutter	flutter run, fvm flutter run, fvm spawn <version> run	run	Flutter run key commands.
Flutter	flutter build …	build	the command ends
Next.js	next build	build	the command ends
Next.js	next dev	dev	✓ Ready in
Vite	vite build	build	the command ends
Vite	vite, vite dev	dev	ready in … ms
Create React App	react-scripts build	build	the command ends
Create React App	react-scripts start	dev	Compiled successfully / webpack compiled / Compiled with warnings
.NET	dotnet build, dotnet publish	build	the command ends
.NET	dotnet run	run	Now listening on: / Application started.; for console apps, the end of the build
.NET	dotnet watch	watch	dotnet watch 🚀 Started

npm, pnpm, yarn and bun scripts are resolved through package.json (npm run dev → vite), including npm -w <workspace>, pnpm -C <dir>, and npx. Vite projects that depend on react are recorded as React, and Next.js takes priority over React. The project name comes from pubspec.yaml (name:), package.json (name), or the .sln/.csproj file name. Signals live in wrapper/profiles.json.

Reports

Pick a range at the bottom of the menu bar window, or of the tray app window on Windows (today, yesterday, this week, last 7 days, this month, last month):

• Copy report — copies a text summary to the clipboard: total wait time, build count, average and longest build, and breakdowns by day, source and project.
• CSV — exports the sessions in the selected range as a CSV file.

Concurrent builds count once toward the total wait time; when the plain sum differs from it by more than a minute, the report shows both.

The same report is available in the terminal, on macOS, Windows and Linux:

buildmeter report --range week           # today | yesterday | week | last7 | month | lastmonth
buildmeter report --range month --tech dotnet --csv > dotnet.csv

Note

The app's interface and reports are in Turkish.

Uninstalling

scripts/uninstall.sh           # removes the app, extensions, wrapper and MSBuild hook; keeps your records
scripts/uninstall.sh --purge   # also deletes ~/.buildmeter

License

BuildMeter is distributed under the MIT License; see LICENSE.