Show GH: Focus Pilot – Browser extension enforcing focus via active UI interception

[Nahid-mahmud555]

Hi GitHub Community,

I built Focus Pilot because I realized standard Pomodoro timers fail due to "passive compliance." When a traditional timer rings, it relies entirely on your depleted willpower to stop scrolling. If you are tired, you simply ignore the chime.

Focus Pilot changes this by moving from passive notifications to active, in-context UI enforcement.

⚡ Key Features:

1. Active Viewport Interception: It dynamically injects an overlay and intercepts your tab flow when a session ends, physically blocking cognitive drift and routing you back to your core task.
2. Micro-Temporal Scaling: If you drop the task or break timer below 1 minute, it instantly scales to a "5-second hyper-sprint." This is highly effective for quick micro-breaks (e.g., the 20-20-20 rule for eye strain) or rapid mental flashcards without breaking your macro workflow.
3. Thread-Safe Live Injection: You can hot-swap or inject new text reminders or links into the running background service worker daemon on the fly, without mutating pre-existing states or resetting active timers.

It’s completely open-source, lightweight, and written natively for Manifest V3 (compatible with Chrome and Firefox).

I'd love to get your feedback on the repository architecture, code quality, and how you personally solve the issue of attention fragmentation during deep-work blocks. Open to code audits, PRs, and contributions!

👉 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/Nahid-mahmud555/focus-pilot-pro-official
📥 Firefox Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/focus-pilot-pro/

Thanks,
Nahid Mahmud

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[roohan-514]

Nice concept — "active UI interception" is a clever departure from passive Pomodoro timers. A few thoughts after looking at the repo:

1. Viewport interception is powerful but risky — aggressive overlay injection can conflict with other extensions and some web apps (especially SPAs). Consider adding a whitelist/blacklist for domains where the interception activates.
2. The micro-temporal scaling (5-second hyper-sprint) is unique — most focus tools ignore sub-minute intervals entirely. This is genuinely useful for the 20-20-20 rule as you mentioned. You might want to highlight this more prominently in the README.
3. Security consideration — since the extension injects UI into pages, you'll want to be careful about what dynamic content gets rendered in the overlay (to avoid XSS risks, especially with the "hot-swap text reminders" feature).
4. For the README — adding a short GIF demo of the interception in action would help communicate the core value proposition instantly.
   Starred the repo. Interested to see where this goes.

[Nahid-mahmud555]

Hi @roohan-514,

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback and the star! I really appreciate you taking the time to look through the repo and share such insightful thoughts.

Here are my thoughts on your suggestions:

1. Whitelist/Blacklist: This is an excellent point. Aggressive overlay injection can definitely disrupt complex SPAs. Adding a domain control list is now on my immediate roadmap to ensure a smoother user experience.
2. Micro-temporal scaling: Glad you liked the 5-second hyper-sprint! I built it keeping eye strain rules like 20-20-20 in mind. I will definitely update the README to highlight this use case more prominently.
3. Security (XSS): You hit the nail on the head. Handling dynamic content inside active page context is risky. I'll make sure to double-check the sanitization logic for the "hot-swap text reminders" feature to prevent any XSS issues.
4. GIF Demo: Absolutely! Visuals speak louder than text. I'm currently working on a short screen recording and will add a GIF demo to the README very soon.

Thanks again for the encouragement. It means a lot to an open-source project! Stay tuned for the updates! 🚀

[roohan-514]

Glad to hear the feedback was useful! Looking forward to seeing the updates — especially the domain whitelist and the GIF demo. If you open any issues or PRs for those features, feel free to tag me and I'll take a look. Keep up the great work!

[Nahid-mahmud555]

Awesome! Thanks a lot @roohan-514. I'll definitely tag you as soon as I create the issues or open the PRs for those features. Would love to have your insights on them! 🙌

[Nahid-mahmud555]

@roohan-514 . Ah, I see! Actually, the extension already inherently works like a whitelist. It doesn't aggressively inject overlays into every website by default. It only activates on specific URLs/links that the user explicitly inputs and targets inside the app. If the user doesn't provide a link, it remains completely passive.

So, users don't have to worry about the extension disrupting complex SPAs like Gmail or Facebook unless they intentionally want to intercept them! Thanks again for bringing this up, it helps me clarify how the app functions under the hood. 🚀

[Nahid-mahmud555]

Hi @roohan-514,

I have successfully updated the README.md file for Focus Pilot Pro with the new detailed overview and the science behind the 20-20-20 rule. I've also uploaded a 10-second runtime demo GIF (focus-pilot-demo.gif) so users can visualize the core workflow directly from the repository homepage.

Could you please review the updates and ensure that our extension files and associated domains are added to the whitelist? This will prevent any runtime conflicts or background synchronization blocks during active focus sessions.

Here is the direct link to the repository: https://github.com/Nahid-mahmud555/focus-pilot-pro-official

Let me know if we need any further adjustments! 🚀🔥