frec

Frecency-based item tracker — ranks items by how often and how recently you use them.

Built to power pickers and menus that should reorder based on actual usage, like a tmux sessionizer.

Install

With Go:

go install github.com/shv-ng/frec@latest

Without Go: grab the binary for your platform from the releases page.

How It Works

Each item has a score based on visit frequency and recency. Recent visits weigh more than old ones. The score decays over time if you stop using something.

score = (count × avg_weight × 100) / days_since_first_seen

Weight by recency: 0–4d → 1.0, 5–14d → 0.7, 15–31d → 0.5, 32–90d → 0.3, 90d+ → 0.1

Starred items get 2× score.

Usage

frec add <namespace> <item>        # Record a visit
frec list <namespace>              # List items sorted by score
frec remove <namespace> <item>     # Remove an item
frec star <namespace> <item>       # Star an item
frec unstar <namespace> <item>
frec sync <namespace>              # Replace namespace contents from stdin
frec namespace list                # List all namespaces
frec namespace remove <namespace>

List Flags

--format      Output format string (default: "${name}\t${star}\tscore:${score}\tvisits:${count}\tlast:${lastseen}d ago\n")
--limit N     Top N items only
--since N     Only items visited in last N days
--starred     Only starred items

Format tokens: ${name}, ${star}, ${score}, ${count}, ${firstseen}, ${lastseen}

Sync

sync replaces the namespace with items from stdin, preserving existing metadata (score, visits, starred) for items that already exist. New items start fresh.

ls ~/projects | frec sync projects
find ~/work -maxdepth 1 -type d | frec sync dirs

Use --null if your input is null-separated (e.g. find -print0):

find ~/projects -maxdepth 1 -type d -print0 | frec sync --null projects

Data

Stored in $XDG_DATA_HOME/frec (default: ~/.local/share/frec), one .tsv file per namespace.

---

If frec is useful to you, consider giving it a ⭐ — it helps others find it.

Built with ❤️ by shv-ng.