Titra

Titra is a lightweight, self‑hosted time‑tracking system focused on speed and simplicity. From a developer’s standpoint it exposes a RESTful JSON API that can be consumed by any client, while the web UI is built with React and TypeScript, leveraging a modern toolchain (Vite, Tailwind CSS) for rapid rendering. The backend is written in Node.js using the Express framework, and data persistence relies on a single‑document store: MongoDB. The application follows the classic three‑tier architecture—frontend, API server, and database—making it straightforward to containerize with Docker or deploy on cloud platforms like DigitalOcean Marketplace.

Key Features

• Fast, low‑latency UI: The single‑page application loads in under 10 s (Lighthouse score 100) thanks to aggressive bundle splitting and minimal HTTP requests.
• Rich API surface: Endpoints for projects, time entries, users, and reports are documented in Swagger‑style JSON, allowing developers to integrate Titra with task boards (e.g., Wekan) or custom dashboards.
• Export & reporting: CSV and JSON exports are available via API, enabling automated billing or analytics pipelines.
• Webhooks: External services can subscribe to events such as entry.created or project.updated, making real‑time integration trivial.

Technical Stack

The choice of MongoDB aligns with the application’s requirement for rapid writes and flexible schemas, while Express keeps the API layer minimal and testable. TypeScript in both frontend and backend enforces type safety across the codebase, reducing runtime errors.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Titra ships as a ready‑to‑run Docker image, and the included docker-compose.yml demonstrates a single‑node deployment with an embedded MongoDB container. For production, you can replace the local database with a managed instance (e.g., Atlas) and expose the API behind a reverse proxy such as Nginx or Traefik. The application scales horizontally by adding more API replicas; MongoDB’s replica set can be configured for high availability. Since the frontend is static, it can be served from a CDN or integrated into an existing SPA stack.

Integration & Extensibility

• Plugin hooks: The core exposes lifecycle events that developers can listen to via a simple event emitter.
• External auth: While the default uses local credentials, middleware can be swapped to support OAuth2 or SAML.
• Custom dashboards: The API allows fetching raw time‑entry data, enabling developers to build bespoke reporting tools or embed Titra widgets in intranet portals.
• Webhooks: JSON payloads are sent to configurable URLs, making it trivial to trigger CI pipelines or Slack notifications when a new entry is logged.

Developer Experience

The repository contains comprehensive documentation in the /wiki, covering best practices, API usage, and integration guides. The codebase is modular, with clear separation of concerns: routes, controllers, services, and models. Unit tests (Jest) cover critical paths, and the CI pipeline ensures that every push is linted and tested before being published. Community support is active on GitHub Discussions, where feature requests and bug reports are triaged promptly.

Use Cases

• Freelance billing: A solo developer can spin up a local instance, track time against client projects, and export CSVs for invoicing.
• Small team productivity: A 5‑person startup can integrate Titra with Wekan, automatically syncing task statuses to time entries.
• Compliance monitoring: Enterprises needing audit‑ready logs can run Titra on a private Kubernetes cluster, leveraging its webhook system to feed data into SIEM solutions.

Advantages

• Zero‑friction setup: One‑liner Docker Compose or a one‑click DigitalOcean deployment eliminates onboarding pain.
• Performance focus: The UI’s 100 Lighthouse score and minimal API payloads mean less bandwidth consumption, ideal for low‑latency environments.
• Open source & permissive license: No vendor lock‑in; you can extend, fork, or embed Titra wherever needed.
• Scalable architecture: Stateless API servers and a document database make horizontal scaling straightforward.

In short, Titra offers developers a plug‑and‑play time‑tracking solution that can be embedded into existing toolchains, extended via APIs or webhooks, and deployed on any container‑friendly infrastructure without sacrificing performance.