Building Features Users Actually Want (And Making Sure They Work)

When you’re building developer tools, feedback comes fast and direct. Our beta testers don’t mince words—they tell you exactly what’s missing, what’s broken, and what would make their daily workflow smoother.

Over the past month, one request kept surfacing above all others: “I love the time tracking, but I can’t see how much time I’ve invested in each task without running separate commands.” It wasn’t about adding more features—it was about making existing functionality visible where it matters most.

But here’s the thing about developer tools: delivering the feature is only half the challenge. The other half is making sure it works flawlessly at scale. Because if your CLI tool takes more than a split second to respond, developers will find something else.

The Feature Story

The request seemed simple enough: show accumulated time in the task list. But simple requests often hide complex design decisions.

We could have added a new command (tycana time list), but that would mean context switching. We could have shown time data in the default view, but that would clutter the clean interface that users loved. The solution emerged from watching how people actually work: they live in tycana list --verbose when they need detailed information.

So we integrated time tracking directly into the metadata display. Completed sessions show as compact time blocks: [2h30m]. Active tracking gets a visual indicator: [▶ 1h15m] with green highlighting. The information appears exactly where users need it, when they need it, without compromising the clean default experience.

$ tycana list --verbose

📋 All Tasks

  ✓ abc123  Marketing presentation      @work #urgent ~2h [3h45m]
  ● def456  Fix authentication bug      @backend #bug [▶ 45m]
  ◦ ghi789  Review design mockups       @design ~1h
  · jkl012  Plan next sprint            @work

The feature feels obvious in retrospect—which is usually the sign of good design.

Performance That Matters

But delivering the feature was only the beginning. CLI tools live or die by their responsiveness. Users expect instant feedback, especially from productivity tools they use dozens of times per day.

We stress-tested the timer display with realistic datasets: 3,000+ tasks across multiple projects, with hundreds of time tracking sessions. The results needed to be consistent regardless of data size.

Performance Results:

• List operations: 37ms average with 3,000+ tasks
• Memory usage: 16MB for large datasets
• Consistency: Sub-50ms performance maintained at scale
• Time aggregation: Real-time calculation with zero lag

Here’s how Tycana performs at scale:

Response Time Performance (Target: ≤100ms)
100ms ┤
 80ms ┤
 60ms ┤
 40ms ┤ ████████████████████████████
 20ms ┤ ██ 37ms consistent ███████████
  0ms └─────────────────────────────────
      100   500  1000  2000  3000+ tasks

Memory Usage Efficiency  
20MB ┤
16MB ┤ ████████████████████████████
12MB ┤ ██ Only 16MB at 3000+ tasks ██
 8MB ┤
 4MB ┤
 0MB └─────────────────────────────────
     100   500  1000  2000  3000+ tasks

Before vs After Optimization:

• List operations: 43ms → 37ms (14% faster)
• Add operations: 86ms → 31ms (64% faster)
• Search operations: 41ms → 37ms (10% faster)

The numbers tell the story: whether you’re managing 50 tasks or 3,000, the experience remains identical. No degradation, no lag, no reason to think twice about using the feature.

The Bigger Picture

This single feature request revealed something important about building developer tools: excellence isn’t just about having the right features—it’s about implementing them with the rigor that developers expect from their tools.

Performance testing isn’t optional when your users are developers. They’ll notice if your tool slows down their workflow. They’ll notice if memory usage creeps up. They’ll notice if response times vary based on data size. And they’ll switch to something else if your tool doesn’t meet their standards.

We run comprehensive performance benchmarks not because we have to, but because our users deserve tools that work consistently under any conditions. Every feature gets the same treatment: user-focused design combined with engineering rigor.

This approach extends beyond individual features. We’re conducting a comprehensive CLI excellence audit, comparing every aspect of Tycana against established tools like Taskwarrior and modern apps like Todoist. The goal isn’t just feature parity—it’s setting a new standard for what CLI productivity tools can be.

What’s Next

The timer display feature is live and performing exactly as designed. Beta testers are already using it to better understand their time investment patterns, and we’re seeing requests for related features like productivity analytics.

But the real win isn’t the feature itself—it’s the validation of our development approach. Listen to users, implement thoughtfully, test rigorously, and deliver something that works beautifully at any scale.

That’s the standard we’re holding ourselves to as we continue building the best CLI task manager for developers.

Try the timer display feature with tycana list --verbose or learn more about Tycana at tycana.com