Prefrontal

How it works

Context, not blocklists.

YouTube is work or a distraction depending on what you said you would do. Prefrontal judges the match, not the app.

Set a focus

Say what you mean to do.

“Write the Q3 report”, with a rough length if you have one. Two quick questions sharpen it: which tools, which people, what the report covers. A goal you have used before never asks again.

It watches context

App, window title, site. Then the words, if it must.

Every few seconds it reads which window is in front and, for a browser, which site. A small language model on your machine scores how well that fits the focus. When that is not enough to tell (which e-mail, which chat), it reads the words in that one window, on your machine, and deletes them. The score is smoothed, so one stray tab changes nothing.

0.0 writing the report · 0.6 a video platform’s front page · 1.0 r/woodworking

It asks, never commands

One question, four answers.

After three minutes of drift the panel changes colour, then asks. Back to it, On task, Snooze or Park it into your task list. One click teaches it: say “On task” once for a context and it stays quiet about that context for the whole focus.

The privacy promise, in plain words

It cannot report on you, because there is nowhere to report to.

No keystrokes, ever.It measures how long since you last touched the keyboard or mouse. It never knows what you typed. There is no code path for it.
No server, no account, no telemetry.The model runs on your machine through Ollama, unless you point it at another server yourself. The only other connection it can make is to your own task manager, and only when you turn that on: Park sends the title and site of what you park, and your tasks due now are fetched to show them.
Excluded apps and sites stop it entirely.Password managers, banking, health and government sites, and private browser windows come excluded. While one is in front, nothing is recorded or read at all. Add your own in Settings, or with one click from the tray.
What it reads stays in memory.When a window title is not enough, it reads the text of the focused window on your machine and deletes the picture straight after. Never the whole screen, never written to disk. An optional vision upgrade, also local, can describe windows with few words in them.
One folder. Seven days. Delete any time.Your history lives in a single folder, in one database beside one config file. Raw history is reduced to daily totals after a week. A “wipe everything” button does what it says.

# config.toml, the whole privacy section [privacy] cloud_consent = false screenshot_cloud_consent = false task_manager_consent = false [llm] endpoint = "http://localhost:11434/v1" model = "qwen2.5:7b-instruct" [exclusions] apps = ["1Password.exe", "KeePass.exe", …] domains = ["commbank.com.au", "mychart.com", …] private_browsing = true

These are the defaults. Every switch is a line you can read.

For the ADHD brain

Most focus tools punish the drift. This one notices the stall.

Drifting off is only half of it. Freezing in front of the right window, losing the thread after a break, and not feeling time pass cost more afternoons than any website.

Stalls

The same window for ten minutes with no progress, hopping between six windows and settling on none, or sitting still for a few minutes, is a stall. It offers three concrete next steps and keeps the one you pick in view. Each kind of offer has its own off switch.

“Stuck on the report? Want three next steps?”

Time blindness

Give a focus a rough length and it notes the halfway point quietly, then asks at the end. Keep going, wrap up, or ten more. No countdown clock in your face.

“You planned 30 min; it has been 30.”

Picking the thread back up

After a break, a meeting or a reboot, it tells you where you were: the goal, the last document, how long ago. Resume with one click.

“You were working on the Q3 report. Last in Word, 40 min ago. Resume?”

Park it

Found something you genuinely need to come back to? Park it: the page becomes a task due later today in your own list, and you are back on the focus.

“Parked: Look at: Standing desks compared.”

Runs on your machine

What it needs.

Windows 11Tray icon, ambient panel, on-device voice. macOS is next.

A local modelOllama with a 7-billion-parameter instruct model. The installer offers to set it up. A verdict takes a second or two and never leaves the machine.

Nothing elseNo account, no subscription, no browser extension. Start with Windows if you like; pause from the tray when you don’t.

Is it a blocker?

No. It never closes a window or locks a site. It asks a question, and you are always right about the answer.

Can my employer or partner see what it records?

Only by sitting at your computer. There is no server, no sync and no export that leaves the machine. Raw history is kept for seven days, then reduced to daily totals per app and site, without window titles or page addresses.

What does the model actually see?

The focus you typed, the app name, the window title, the site for a browser, and the last few windows you used. When those are not enough to tell, the words in the focused window, read on your machine. Never the whole screen, never what you type, and nothing at all in an excluded app or site.

Will it nag?

At most four questions an hour and never two within five minutes. Nothing during calls, full-screen video or outside your schedule, if you set one. Most drifts self-correct inside a minute, so the default is to do nothing, and every kind of question and offer can be switched off.

What does it cost?

Nothing while it is in testing. If it earns its place, a donation link will live on this page.

Download

The Windows build is in private testing.

A signed installer with the model set-up built in is on its way. Leave your address and you will get one e-mail when the first open build is ready, and nothing else.