Track the time a command takes in UNIX/LINUX?

Yes, use time <command>, such as

time ls

Consult man time for more options. Link.

linux unix command-line terminal

Use

/usr/bin/time

instead that the time builtin in the bash: it is more configurable AFAIK.

e.g. /usr/bin/time --format=' \n---- \nelapsed time is %e'ls

linux unix command-line terminal

Here is how a sleep of one second looks like, timed with time:

$ time sleep 1real    0m1.001suser    0m0.000ssys 0m0.000s

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