Generic screen time misses the point
Apple’s Screen Time can tell you how many hours you spent in a browser or a terminal, but not how much of that was AI. These days that is the number that matters: the chats, the agents, the autocomplete you barely notice. Touch Grass measures AI time specifically, so the figure reflects the habit you actually want to watch.
What it measures
Once a second it checks what is frontmost and decides whether it is AI.
- Apps. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other AI tools, matched by bundle id.
- Terminal tools.
claude,codex,aider,gemini, including ones running under an interpreter. - AI websites. chatgpt.com, claude.ai, perplexity.ai, and friends, recognized from the browser’s current tab address, read locally.
A number that means something
A second counts only when you are engaged at an AI surface, or when an AI agent is working in the background. Idle windows and unrelated apps do not inflate the total. It accumulates in a rolling window that is saved to disk, so quitting does not reset it. The full model is on how it works.
From a number to a break
A tracker you can ignore is just a number. When you cross your limit, Touch Grass gives a one minute warning, then fills every display with a calm landscape and a countdown. Everything is computed on your Mac.