#Harvest CLI

A CLI tool for interacting with Harvest, written in Python. It does not implement the entire API spec, just some basics.

#Why?

• I prefer using CLI tools where possible because I find them less distracting and easier to use than firing up a web browser
• Also, browsers are quite resource intensive and I don't like chewing up a few GiB of RAM just to log some time on a project!
• The other Harvest CLI App is written in nodejs and requires npm. I don't like installing entire ecosystems just for one app. If you don't mind this, or you already have npm installed for other reasons then I guarantee that hrvst-cli is more feature-complete and better written.
• I don't write much code any more and wanted to have some fun, and learn how CLIs are built using Python.

#Features

• Basic CRUD for several Harvest objects: Projects, Tasks, Time Entries, and Users
• Choose between plain output (default) or JSON by passing a flag
• Outputs to STDOUT to form part of a pipeline
• Configure local aliases for projects, users, and tasks so you don't need to remember Harverst IDs for regular tasks
• Configuration (aliases and authentication) is done via a local config file in JSON, which respects $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and defaults to ~/.config/harvest-cli/config.json
• Authentication is via getting a Harvest Personal Access Token and pasting it into either the config or using the config command to set it up automatically. oAuth2 is not supported and likely won't be in the future, because this CLI tool is mostly designed for personal use and I prefer to use personal access tokens; sorry! I am open to receiving contributions for this though, with the caveat that it must only use dependencies available in the Debian repos (not PyPi!)

#Installation

Installation is via make, which will copy the CLI script to ~/.local/bin/harvest-cli as an executable, and copy the supporting API wrapper class and associated files to ~/.local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/getharvest_api_wrapper.

• make install installs
• make uninstall removes the files that were installed

In the future, I am intending to add functionality to the Makefile to support building a .deb package. This is so that, if you prefer, you can use apt to install/manage it as a package in your system.

#Dependencies

• Python3, and currently assumes 3.11 for installation
• Python libraries:
  • click
  • json
  • os
  • requests
  • sys

I have deliberately designed it so that I can use libraries which are in the Debian repos rather than relying on PyPi packages. I assume that the script will still work if you install the libraries via pip or if you're on another distro.

If you are on Debian or a derivative and want the system package manager to manage the dependencies for you: run the following:

sudo apt install python3-click 

The other dependencies usually come with Debian's python distribution.

#Contributing

This is pretty much a personal tool which I've designed for my own amusement and use, and to satisfy my own stubbornness around not installing npm just to run a single CLI application. I am not expecting any contributions. However, if this has resonated with you and you're keen to contribute then I am open to the following contributions:

• Code cleanup – My CS degree is very rusty and I was never trained in Python, nor have I endeavoured to learn it well. The code has lots of redunant bits in there, and in general I am open to a tidy up.
• oAuth – I have no interest in implementing oAuth or using the tool in an oAuth-y manner. However if you feel this would be useful to others/yourself, then I am very open to you implementing the feature as long as the personal access token feature also remains intact from an interactional point of view.
• More Harvest API features – I have little interest in them, but feel free to go for it.
• Makefile adjustments – I'm quite new at Makefiles. If there's a better way to write them or even a better way to install the software, please contribute.