How play time works
Sign in and your adventurer plays on the time your finished work earns. A day at your usual pace earns a full day of play, and your usual pace is measured from your own history.
Who this applies to. Guests play freely with no limit. When you sign in for the first time, play time starts with 72 h in your time bank, so your adventurer starts playing straight away; connect a work source to keep earning.
What counts: finished items
A finished item is one thing you completed in a work tool: a merged pull request, a review, a closed issue or ticket,
a completed task, a published document, a deploy. Each one arrives with four fields only: the source (the tool, such
as github), its id in that tool, its type (such as pr_merged) and when it was
finished. Sending the same item twice counts once.
There are three ways to connect work: A. Connect GitHub, B. Claude (MCP connector) and C. a webhook.
Connect GitHub
Sign in (Google or an email link: the account button, top right), then press Connect GitHub on the Account panel. GitHub asks you to approve Ironvale and sends you back to the game. You can connect more than one GitHub account (say work and personal, up to 5): press Connect another GitHub account and pick it in GitHub's account chooser.
- What counts: the daily number on your GitHub contribution graph (commits, pull requests, reviews, issues). Each
contribution is one finished item from the source
github.com, typecontribution(its own source, separate from anygithubitems a routine or webhook sends). Ironvale checks about once an hour. - Your goal is your own average: when you connect, your average number of contributions per working day over the 35 days before today (rest days left out, days with none counted as 0) becomes your GitHub benchmark, as long as at least 7 of those days had a contribution. Those past days earn no play time; every contribution from today on does, at that rate: your average in a day earns 24 h, half of it 12 h, up to 36 h. The average then rolls on day by day, moving at most 15% a day. With less history, GitHub starts like any new source (below).
- Private work: GitHub only reports contributions to private repositories if your profile includes them (GitHub, Settings, Public profile, Include private contributions on my profile), and then only as numbers. Ironvale asks GitHub for no extra access and never sees repository names, commit messages or code.
- Several accounts, one source: every connected GitHub account counts towards the one
github.comsource. A second account's contributions from before you connected it join your benchmark at once (they never earn play time). - Your own accounts only: GitHub itself confirms each account when you approve, and one GitHub account counts for one player.
- Remove next to an account stops it and removes Ironvale's access at GitHub; the others carry on. If GitHub stops accepting the access (you removed the app on GitHub, say), that account shows Reconnect.
Contributions share the limit of 500 new finished items a day with your other sources. If a Claude routine already sends
your merged pull requests as github, those stay a separate source, but the same work then counts in both:
you may want the routine to skip GitHub.
The rules
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Welcome | 72 h in your time bank once, when you first sign in |
| A day at your usual pace | 24 h of play |
| A lighter day | Proportionally less: half your pace earns 12 h |
| The most one day can earn | 150% of a day: 36 h, however much you finish |
| The most your time bank can hold | 96 h at once. Time earned beyond that isn't added |
| A new source, day one | Its first day counts in full with a single finished item: that day's own total is its benchmark |
| A new source, the next four weeks | The benchmark is the average of its working days so far (days with nothing count as 0) |
| After four weeks | The median of its daily totals over the last 4 weeks of working days; it moves at most 15% a day |
| GitHub with history | Your average per working day over the 35 days before you connected, then rolling on, moving at most 15% a day: see Connect GitHub |
| Rest days | Saturday and Sunday unless you choose others; at most 2 a week; each gives at least 24 h |
| Late items | Anything finished up to 7 days ago still earns for the day it was finished |
| Running low | With less than 10 minutes left your adventurer heads home to bed and wakes once 15 minutes or more are available |
Worked examples
In these examples your benchmark is 10: on a usual working day your items add up to a weight of 10.
A usual day. You merge 2 pull requests (weight 3 each), review 2 (weight 1 each) and close 2 tickets (weight 1 each): 6 + 2 + 2 = 10. That's 100% of your benchmark: 24 h of play.
A lighter day. One merged pull request and two reviews: 3 + 2 = 5, half your benchmark: 12 h.
A big day. Five merged pull requests and three reviews: 15 + 3 = 18, or 180%. The bonus stops at 150%: 36 h.
A full time bank. Your adventurer still has 80 h left when a usual day adds 24 h. The time bank holds up to 96 h, so 16 h are added and the rest is left behind. That covers a long weekend away, though not weeks.
A new source. Monday you connect a task app and finish 1 task: that's 100% of day one, 24 h. Tuesday you finish 10: your benchmark is Monday's 1, so the day hits the 150% ceiling, 36 h. Wednesday's benchmark is the average of Monday and Tuesday, 5.5. After four weeks the usual median takes over.
Your pace moves, slowly. After the first four weeks, a month of bigger days lifts the median of your last 4 weeks to 14. Your benchmark doesn't jump from 10 to 14: it can rise at most 15% a day, so tomorrow it's 11.5, then 13.2, then 14. One huge week never sets an impossible target.
Two sources. GitHub's benchmark is 10 and Linear's is 4. Today GitHub adds up to 10 and Linear to 2. Your day is (10 + 2) / (10 + 4) = 86%: 20 h 34 min.
Rest days
- Saturday and Sunday are rest days unless you pick others, up to 2 a week.
- Each rest day gives at least 24 h as it starts. Work you finish on a rest day can still earn the bonus: one day earns at most 36 h.
- Rest days are left out of your benchmark, so a quiet weekend never lowers it.
- A change applies from the next day. You can change your rest days once every 7 days (the first change is free).
Weights
Each source and type has a weight between 0 and 10. The defaults:
| Type | Weight |
|---|---|
pr_merged | 3 |
doc_published | 2 |
pr_reviewed, review, issue_closed, ticket_closed, task_completed, card_done, deploy, other | 1 |
commit | 0.25 |
| Any other type | 1 |
Change them in the game: Account > Finished items > Weights. A weight of 0 keeps a type out of your play time altogether.
Days and time zones
A day runs from midnight to midnight in your time zone. The game takes the zone from your browser the first time you open the Finished items panel. You can change it once every 7 days (the first change is free), so a day can't be counted twice by moving around the clock.
When play time runs out
Your adventurer walks home and goes to bed: in their own house once they have one, or at the Lake Gate Inn. While they sleep, nothing happens in the world and nothing is lost. The moment new play time arrives, they get up and carry on.
An open game usually hears about new play time straight away; at worst it checks again within 10 minutes while your adventurer sleeps.