ByteSip

A fun developer micro-break reminder plugin for IntelliJ IDEA.

ByteSip nudges you with non-blocking notification balloons so your body keeps up with your IDE:

Break type	Cadence	Vibe
Water	every 25 min	"Code can wait. Kidneys cannot."
Eyes	every 50 min	"Pixels are not nutrients."
Move	every 90 min	"Your chair is getting emotionally attached."

Every notification has two actions:

• Done — dismiss the balloon, regular cadence continues.
• Snooze 1 min — bump the same reminder by 1 minutes.

Tech stack

• Kotlin (JVM toolchain 21)
• Gradle Kotlin DSL
• IntelliJ Platform Gradle Plugin 2.x
• Target platform: IntelliJ IDEA 2024.2+ (sinceBuild = 242)

Project structure

bytesip/
├── build.gradle.kts
├── settings.gradle.kts
├── gradle.properties
└── src/main/
    ├── kotlin/com/bytesip/
    │   ├── ByteSipStartupActivity.kt     # boots scheduler on project open
    │   ├── BreakScheduler.kt             # @Service app-level scheduler
    │   ├── BreakType.kt                  # WATER / EYES / MOVE enum
    │   ├── BreakMessages.kt              # random message pools
    │   └── ByteSipNotificationService.kt # builds the balloon notifications
    └── resources/META-INF/plugin.xml

Run from IntelliJ IDEA

1. Open the bytesip folder in IntelliJ IDEA — it will be detected as a Gradle project. Let Gradle sync.
2. Make sure a JDK 21 is configured (File → Project Structure → SDKs).
3. In the Gradle tool window, open bytesip → Tasks → intellij platform.
4. Double-click runIde. A sandbox IntelliJ instance launches with ByteSip installed.
5. Open any project inside the sandbox IDE. ByteSip starts automatically and the first water reminder appears after 25 minutes.

Tip: to verify behavior faster, temporarily shorten the intervals in BreakType.kt (e.g. Duration.ofSeconds(15)), then rerun runIde.

Run from the command line

From the project root:

./gradlew runIde

To build a distributable plugin ZIP:

./gradlew buildPlugin

The artifact is produced at build/distributions/ByteSip-<version>.zip and can be installed via Settings → Plugins → ⚙ → Install Plugin from Disk….

Design notes

• Uses the IntelliJ balloon notification system — no modal popups.
• A single application-level @Service (BreakScheduler) owns all timers, so opening multiple projects does not stack duplicate reminders.
• Notifications dispatch onto the EDT before showing.
• "Snooze 1 min" reschedules the affected break once; regular cadence resumes automatically after the snoozed fire.