Managing & Consolidating Activities

Manage, organize, and consolidate your activities over time

As you use the Zipwire CLI, you'll accumulate activities. Over time, these can become sprawling, inconsistent, or redundant. This guide covers how to organize and consolidate them.

Why Activity Management Matters

After months of tracking time, you might have:

• Duplicates: "Frontend Development" and "Frontend > Development"

• Typos: "Meeetings" instead of "Meetings"

• Inconsistent naming: "Bug Fixes", "Bug Fixing", "Bug Fix"

• Too many activities: Staffing agencies often prefer fewer, broader categories

• Historical cruft: Old client names or abandoned projects

The good news: the CLI lets you consolidate and rename activities without losing any data. All your journal entries automatically update.

Finding Activities

List All Activities

# View all activities
zw activity list

# View in hierarchical format
zw activity list --style hierarchical

# View as flat list (default)
zw activity list --style flat

Search for Activities

# Search by name
zw activity search "meeting"

# Search by project
zw activity search "ABC Corp"

# Search by activity
zw activity search "bug"

See Recently Used

# Most recently used activities
zw activity recent

# Last 2 weeks
zw activity recent --period 2w

# Last 30 days
zw activity recent --period 30d

Consolidating Activities

Basic Rename

Rename a single activity:

zw activity rename --from "Old Activity Name" --to "New Activity Name"

Example:

zw activity rename --from "Meeetings" --to "Meetings"

Merging Multiple Activities

Merge several activities into one. This is useful when you have duplicates or variations:

zw activity rename \
  --from "Frontend Development" \
  --from "Frontend > Development" \
  --from "FE Dev" \
  --to "Client A > Frontend > Development"

This command:

1. Takes all entries from the three source activities

2. Moves them to the target activity

3. Removes the old activities

4. Updates all journal entries automatically

Using Activity Keys

For programmatic use (scripts, agents), you can use activity keys instead of names:

# Get activity keys from list
zw activity list --format structured

# Merge using keys
zw activity rename \
  --from "abe_jnla_ac71x94j8smyi0fu" \
  --from "abe_jnla_bc82y05k9t" \
  --to "abe_jnla_cd93z16l0u"

Important: Quoting Activity Names

Activity names with spaces or the > character must be quoted:

# ❌ Wrong - shell will interpret the >
zw activity rename --from Client > Development --to Client > Dev

# ✅ Correct - quoted names
zw activity rename --from "Client > Development" --to "Client > Dev"

What Happens During Consolidation

When you merge activities, the CLI:

1. Consolidates all journal entries from source activities to the target

2. Updates every affected journal entry automatically

3. Removes the old activities once merged

4. Reports what was changed:

   • Number of entries updated

   • Activities removed

   • Breakdown per source activity

Example output:

↓ Activity consolidation complete

▦ Target Activity
• Client A > Development > Features

▦ Merged Activities
• 45 entries from "Client A > Dev > Features"
• 12 entries from "Frontend Features"

✓ 57 total entries updated
✓ 2 activities removed

Common Consolidation Scenarios

Scenario 1: Fixing Typos

You've been tracking time with a typo in an activity name:

zw activity rename --from "Meetigns" --to "Meetings"

All 23 entries under "Meetigns" are automatically updated to "Meetings".

Scenario 2: Handling Agency Constraints

Your staffing agency prefers fewer, broader categories. Instead of:

Client A > Development > Features
Client A > Development > Bug Fixes
Client A > Development > Code Review
Client A > QA > Testing
Client A > QA > Automation

Consolidate to:

zw activity rename \
  --from "Client A > Development > Features" \
  --from "Client A > Development > Bug Fixes" \
  --from "Client A > Development > Code Review" \
  --to "Client A > Development"

zw activity rename \
  --from "Client A > QA > Testing" \
  --from "Client A > QA > Automation" \
  --to "Client A > QA"

Now all entries are organized under just two high-level activities.

Scenario 3: Consolidating Duplicates

You've been inconsistent with naming. Fix it:

zw activity rename \
  --from "Frontend Development" \
  --from "Frontend > Development" \
  --from "FE Dev" \
  --from "Frontend Dev Work" \
  --to "Client A > Frontend > Development"

All 127 entries across four variations are merged into one activity.

Scenario 4: Cleaning Up Old Clients

You finished a project and want to consolidate historical entries:

zw activity rename \
  --from "Old Client > Project Alpha > Development" \
  --from "Old Client > Project Alpha > QA" \
  --from "Old Client > Project Alpha > Meetings" \
  --to "Archive > Old Client > Project Alpha"

All historical entries are grouped under an "Archive" company for easy reference.

Before & After: A Real Example

Before consolidation (scattered activities):

$ zw activity list
• ABC Corp > Development > Features
• ABC Corp > Dev > Bug Fixes
• ABC Corp > Frontend Development
• ABC Corp > Frontend > Features
• ABC Corp > Meetings
• ABC Corp > Meeting Notes
• Personal > General > General
• Personal > Admin > Admin Work
• Personal > Admin > General

Consolidation commands:

# Fix ABC Corp inconsistencies
zw activity rename \
  --from "ABC Corp > Dev > Bug Fixes" \
  --to "ABC Corp > Development > Bug Fixes"

zw activity rename \
  --from "ABC Corp > Frontend Development" \
  --from "ABC Corp > Frontend > Features" \
  --to "ABC Corp > Frontend > Development"

zw activity rename \
  --from "ABC Corp > Meeting Notes" \
  --to "ABC Corp > Meetings"

# Consolidate Personal admin
zw activity rename \
  --from "Personal > Admin > Admin Work" \
  --from "Personal > Admin > General" \
  --to "Personal > Admin"

After consolidation (clean and organized):

$ zw activity list
• ABC Corp > Development > Features
• ABC Corp > Development > Bug Fixes
• ABC Corp > Frontend > Development
• ABC Corp > Meetings
• Personal > General > General
• Personal > Admin

Much cleaner!

Tips & Best Practices

Plan Before Consolidating

Think about your structure before renaming:

# Decide on a consistent format first
# Option A: Company > Project > Activity
# Option B: Company > Activity > Subactivity
# Option C: Client > Billable Category

Check Entry Counts First

See how many entries are affected:

zw activity search "old-name"
# Shows all entries so you know the impact

Consolidate in Batches

If you have many activities, do a few at a time and verify:

# Consolidate one client first
zw activity rename --from "Client A Old Name" --to "Client A > Development"

# Verify it worked
zw activity search "Client A"

# Then move to the next batch
zw activity rename --from "Client B Old Name" --to "Client B > Development"

Keep Hierarchies Consistent

Use consistent separators and levels:

# ✅ Consistent
"Company > Project > Task Type"
"Company > Project > Task Type"

# ❌ Inconsistent
"Company > Project > Task Type"
"Company - Project - Task Type"
"Company/Project/Task"

Use Codes for Broad Categories

If you work for multiple agencies or have many clients, consider using codes:

zw activity rename \
  --from "Old Agency Name > Development" \
  --to "AGENCY_CODE > Development"

# E.g., "A001 > Development", "A002 > Development"

Troubleshooting

"Activity Not Found"

The activity name doesn't exist exactly as written. Check:

# Search for it
zw activity search "part-of-name"

# List all activities
zw activity list

Forgot to Quote the Name

# ❌ This won't work
zw activity rename --from Client > Development --to New Name

# ✅ Always quote names with > or spaces
zw activity rename --from "Client > Development" --to "New Name"

Want to Undo a Merge

The merge is permanent, but you can:

1. Create a new activity with the old name

2. Move entries back using a rename

# Create the old activity again
zw activity create "Old Activity Name"

# Move entries that need it (you'll need to do this via the API or web app)

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For more on tracking time and working with activities, see:

• Getting Started

• Common Workflows

• Configuration

Use the built-in help anytime:

zw activity --help
zw activity rename --help