Comparison with Alternatives

Feature Comparison

Feature	proj-track	history | grep	Custom DEBUG trap	Per-dir HISTFILE
Auto-capture	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Per-project isolation	Yes	No	Varies	Yes
Zero terminal interference	Yes	N/A	No	Yes
Noise filtering	Yes	No	No	No
Sensitive data filtering	Yes	No	No	No
Deduplication	Yes	No	No	No
Instant replay by ID	Yes	No	No	No
Pause/resume	Yes	No	No	No
Export to plain text	Yes	No	No	No
Bash + Zsh	Yes	Bash only	Varies	Varies
No config needed	Yes	N/A	No	No

history | grep (Built-in)

Pros: Always available, no installation needed.

Cons: Global history mixes commands from every directory. No filtering. No per-project isolation. Must manually search with grep. No replay functionality.

Custom DEBUG trap scripts

Pros: Can auto-capture commands.

Cons: The DEBUG trap fires on every keystroke and expansion, which breaks arrow keys in VS Code Terminal. Background logging often produces [1]+ Done messages. Can interfere with Ctrl+C signal handling.

proj-track avoids all of these issues by using PROMPT_COMMAND (bash) and preexec (zsh) instead of the DEBUG trap.

Per-directory HISTFILE

Pros: Built-in shell feature, per-directory history.

Cons: Requires complex HISTFILE manipulation in shell config. No filtering of noise or sensitive commands. No deduplication. No replay. Switching between directories changes your entire history context.

proj-track's Approach

proj-track combines the best of all approaches:

• Auto-capture like DEBUG trap scripts — but without the terminal interference
• Per-project isolation like per-dir HISTFILE — but with smart filtering and replay
• Zero config — just proj-track init and you're done