Your editor has a focus mode. Your browser doesn't.
A focus mode for Chrome: a hard tab cap, a calm intercept screen, and a queue that makes closing feel safe. Not a tab manager. Not a blocker.
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| → | leads to |
| & | and/with |
- Tab cap — default 7, enforced globally across all windows (new-window bypass doesn't work)
- Intercept screen — at cap, new tabs → full-page takeover: queue it, close one, or go back. Includes the "what am I actually looking for?" box, logged locally
- Delay gate — raising cap or disabling → 60s countdown showing your own reason, typed at onboarding. Tightening is instant
- Queue — local list of deferred URLs, one-click restore from the popup
- Streaks — quiet day count while the cap stays tight (broken only by raising cap or turning enforcement off)
- First-run handoff — if install already has more tabs than the cap, onboarding ends with a clear “close N or queue them” screen
- Weekly receipt — popup section: intercepts this week, tabs queued, top distraction domain (also the future Pro upsell surface)
- Rotating intercept copy — day-stable calm headlines so the screen doesn’t go invisible
- D14 heartbeat — anonymous daily boolean ping (install id + day count, nothing else). Worker in
heartbeat/, deployed;PING_URLset inbackground/service-worker.js
chrome://extensions→ Developer mode on- "Load unpacked" → select this folder
- Onboarding opens → type your reason. It matters later.
- Service worker is stateless: all state in
chrome.storage.local, every handler re-reads. Worker death is a non-event - Cap counts
chrome.tabs.query({windowType:'normal'})— global, not per-window - Intercept redirects the new tab (preserves
pendingUrlfor the queue) instead of closing it - Uninstall can't be blocked. The delay gate is the ceiling & that's fine
- AI classification
- Second brain / notes / tags
- Teams
- Sync
- Mobile
- Other browsers
Each is a different product. You know what happens next.
- Week 2 paid layer (ultra focus sessions, YouTube de-pandora, stuck ramp, snooze queue, weekly receipt) only if I use the free core daily for 7 straight days
- Day 30: D14 actives ≥10% of installs, or maintenance mode forever
Checked Chrome Web Store 2026-07-19:
| Candidate | Status |
|---|---|
| DeepWork Tab | No exact match. Near-miss themes: “Focus — Deep Work Theme”, “DeepTrack — Deep Work & Focus Tracker” (different products) |
| Tab Budget | Taken — TabBudget, tbr – Tab Budget Reminder |
| browserfocus | No listing found |
| onetab-mode | No listing found |
Working name DeepWork Tab is clear enough to ship. Avoid “Tab Budget.”