Beeminder

Beeminder API for goal tracking and commitment devices. Use when checking Beeminder goals, adding datapoints, viewing due goals, managing commitments, or tracking habits. Triggers on "beeminder", "goals due", "add datapoint", "track habit", "goal status", "derail".

Beeminder API

Direct REST API access to Beeminder. No CLI dependencies.

Setup

Set two env vars:

• BEEMINDER_USERNAME - Beeminder username
• BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN - personal auth token from https://www.beeminder.com/api/v1/auth_token.json (requires login)

All examples use:

BASE="https://www.beeminder.com/api/v1/users/$BEEMINDER_USERNAME"

Goals

List all goals

curl -s "$BASE/goals.json?auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN" | jq '[.[] | {slug, safebuf, baremin, limsum}]'

Get single goal

curl -s "$BASE/goals/GOAL.json?auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN"

Key fields:

• slug - goal identifier
• safebuf - days of safety buffer (0 = due today, negative = in the red)
• baremin - minimum needed today to stay on track
• limsum - human-readable summary (e.g. "+1 due in 2 days")
• losedate - unix timestamp of derail date
• rate - commitment rate
• runits - rate units (d/w/m/y)
• headsum - summary of current status
• goalval - end goal value (null if no end goal)
• gunits - goal units (e.g. "hours", "pages")

Goals due today

curl -s "$BASE/goals.json?auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  | jq '[.[] | select(.safebuf <= 0)] | sort_by(.losedate) | .[] | {slug, baremin, limsum}'

Goals due within N days

curl -s "$BASE/goals.json?auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  | jq --arg cutoff "$(date -d '+2 days' +%s)" \
    '[.[] | select(.losedate <= ($cutoff | tonumber))] | sort_by(.losedate) | .[] | {slug, baremin, limsum}'

Datapoints

Add datapoint

curl -s -X POST "$BASE/goals/GOAL/datapoints.json" \
  -d "auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -d "value=N" \
  -d "comment=TEXT"

Optional: -d "requestid=UNIQUE_ID" for idempotent retries (safe to repeat without duplicating).

Get recent datapoints

curl -s "$BASE/goals/GOAL/datapoints.json?auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN&count=5&sort=daystamp"

Update datapoint

curl -s -X PUT "$BASE/goals/GOAL/datapoints/DATAPOINT_ID.json" \
  -d "auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -d "value=N" \
  -d "comment=TEXT"

Delete datapoint

curl -s -X DELETE "$BASE/goals/GOAL/datapoints/DATAPOINT_ID.json?auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN"

Common Patterns

Check and report what's due

curl -s "$BASE/goals.json?auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  | jq '[.[] | select(.safebuf <= 1)] | sort_by(.safebuf) | .[] | {slug, baremin, limsum, safebuf}'

Add with idempotent retry

curl -s -X POST "$BASE/goals/GOAL/datapoints.json" \
  -d "auth_token=$BEEMINDER_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  -d "value=1" \
  -d "comment=done" \
  -d "requestid=GOAL-$(date +%Y%m%d)"

Notes

• Base URL must be exactly https://www.beeminder.com/api/v1/ (https, www required)
• All responses are JSON
• Use jq to parse responses
• Daystamps use YYYYMMDD format
• Timestamps are unix epoch seconds