A search for time-dependent violation of the charge-parity symmetry in $D^0 to K^+ K^-$ and $D^0 to pi^+ pi^-$ decays is performed at the LHCb experiment using proton-proton collision data recorded from 2015 to 2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 6 fb$^{-1}$. The $D^0$ meson is required to originate from a $D^*(2010)^+ to D^0 pi^+$ decay, such that its flavour at production is identified by the charge of the accompanying pion. The slope of the time-dependent asymmetry of the decay rates of $D^0$ and $bar{D}^0$ mesons into the final states under consideration is measured to be $Delta Y_{K^+ K^-} = (-2.3 pm 1.5 pm 0.3) times 10^{-4}$, $Delta Y_{pi^+ pi^-} = (-4.0 pm 2.8 pm 0.4)times 10^{-4}$, where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second are systematic. These results are compatible with the conservation of the $CP$ symmetry at the level of 2 standard deviations and improve the precision by nearly a factor of two.