What is a work chronicle?

Updated on 6 July 2026

A work chronicle is a searchable history of everything a team actually did, written by AI from the work itself. With ScreenJournal, employees search their own past, colleagues learn how another team does a job, and departments get answers by asking instead of interrupting. The footage is gone; the knowledge stays.

How does the work chronicle work?

The chronicle is every work timeline, kept and made searchable. It builds in three steps. Each day, ScreenJournal reads on-screen work as it happens and writes each person's timeline: plain-English entries with the app, what was done, how long it took and a score. The raw screen data is deleted immediately during processing, so only derived insight moves forward. Those timelines then accumulate into the chronicle, a permission-scoped history the team can question through the ScreenJournal chat or MCP.

Nothing extra has to be written down for the chronicle to exist. It is a by-product of the work having happened, which is what makes it different from every knowledge base that depends on someone remembering to document.

Can I search my own work history?

Yes, in plain English rather than by date. Ask "what did I work on last month", "where did I fix that webhook bug" or "how did I handle the Q2 price change" and the answer comes back from your derived work history, with the context to drill further. What is searchable is the understanding of the work, not screenshots: the footage was already deleted when each timeline was written.

That changes what your past work is worth. How you solved a problem last quarter stops being a memory exercise or a dig through old tickets and chats; it is findable by asking.

Proof: Ask AI sits on every page and answers from derived data; past activity is searchable through chat and MCP.

How do colleagues learn from the chronicle?

By asking, within what their role allows. Chronicle access is permission-scoped by role, and inside those bounds colleagues can learn how another person or team does a piece of work without booking a meeting. Support can check how engineering shipped a fix. An account manager can see how the last renewal of this shape was handled. A team in one country can read how their counterparts run the same process. Cross-department questions get answered by the chat or MCP instead of interrupting someone's day, so knowledge moves without another recurring meeting.

Proof: chronicle access is permission-scoped by role in the UI.

Can new starters onboard from the chronicle?

Yes. A new hire can learn from how the work is actually done, rather than from documentation about how it was once done. Wikis and process documents go stale the moment a process changes; the chronicle is written from the work itself as it happens, so "how do we actually process invoices" has a current answer drawn from real invoices being processed. The new starter asks, reads how the team genuinely works, and puts the follow-up question to the chat instead of to a busy colleague.

Is a work chronicle the same as organisational memory software?

It is organisational memory built from the work itself rather than from what people remember to write down. Traditional organisational memory and knowledge sharing tools depend on contribution: someone must document the decision, update the wiki, file the summary. The chronicle depends only on the work having happened. The result is a memory that stays current by default and is searchable by meaning, kept after the footage that produced it is gone.

What does the chronicle keep, and what does it never keep?

It keeps the derived understanding of the work and never the raw material it came from. Retention is bounded too: the chronicle keeps the most recent 12 months of derived work history. This table lists both sides.

Redaction is respected in the chronicle as everywhere else: a redacted entry is erased entirely and never appears in anyone's search, and "Personal" entries stay hidden. Because no footage sits behind the record, there is no archive to secure, review or leak; the record is the understanding itself.

Proof: the member timeline's Redact control and auto-hidden "Personal" entry type; the locked "Policy capture" state; access permission-scoped by role in the UI.

Who is the work chronicle for?

Anyone whose work happens on a computer, in three directions at once. Employees get their own past made findable, which turns being observed into something that gives back. Managers can trace how something was actually done without reconstructing it from messages and memory. Teams get fewer interruptions, because the routine "how did you do that" questions go to the chat instead. No screenshot tracker offers an equivalent: a screenshot archive is typically searchable by date at best, and a surveillance recording answers nothing until someone sits and watches it. For the full picture, see ScreenJournal vs the alternatives.

Frequently asked questions

Can ScreenJournal tell me what I worked on last month?

Yes. Ask the chat "what did I work on last month" and it answers from your derived work history, with the detail to drill into specific days or projects. The raw screen data behind that history was deleted immediately during processing; what you are searching is the understanding of the work, not screenshots.

Can other people see entries I have redacted?

No. Redacted entries are erased entirely, and "Personal" entries are hidden automatically. Chronicle access is permission-scoped by role, so colleagues and managers only ever see what their role allows.

How long does the work chronicle keep history?

The chronicle keeps the most recent 12 months of derived work history. The limit applies to the derived record only; raw screen data is never kept at all, because it is deleted immediately during processing.

Does the work chronicle store screenshots?

No. The chronicle is a derived record: plain-English timeline entries with apps, durations and scores. Raw screen data is deleted immediately during processing, so there is no screenshot or video archive to search, secure or leak.

What is ScreenJournal?

ScreenJournal is an AI work visibility tool that reads on-screen work as it happens, turns it into a detailed timeline of what each person actually did, and then deletes the raw screen data. Timelines accumulate into a searchable chronicle of everyone's work history, and from them ScreenJournal generates timesheets and reports automatically and drafts standup summaries on request, answering questions about any of it in plain English.