TabMind

Inspiration

We've all been there: 20 tabs open, notifications pulling you everywhere, and two hours gone with nothing done. Existing tools block sites from lists you configure manually. We wanted something smarter, a tool that understands what you are actually trying to do and protects that intention automatically.

What it does

TabMind is a Chrome extension that tracks tab switching in real time, computes a live distraction score, and nudges you when focus starts fragmenting. Shield Mode closes junk tabs, blocks distracting domains, and uses AI to generate a Goal: one specific task broken into 3 to 5 actionable missions to complete right now.

How we built it

Built on Chrome Extensions Manifest V3 using chrome.tabs and chrome.storage. The AI layer is a local FastAPI server calling the Gemini API across three endpoints:

/infer-goal classifies open tabs and identifies your current goal
/generate-quest produces the focused task and mission breakdown
/summarize-tabs generates one-line summaries for rapid tab triage

The popup is vanilla HTML, CSS, and JS talking to both the background service worker and the backend.

Challenges we ran into

Manifest V3 service workers have no persistent state, so syncing session data requires careful use of chrome.storage. Getting Gemini to return reliable, structured JSON from unpredictable real-world tab sets took significant prompt iteration. Notification timing was also tricky: too frequent and the tool becomes a distraction.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The quest generation works. Opening 15 chaotic tabs, hitting Shield Mode, and watching the AI hand you a ready-made mission list with no manual input is the moment the tool clicks. We kept scope tight and shipped end-to-end in 24 hours.

What we learned

Tab switching frequency is a strong proxy for cognitive load. If a user switches tabs more than \( n \) times in a 10-minute window, focus is likely compromised. Prompt engineering for consistent, structured output is its own discipline. Most importantly: scope ruthlessly, merge early, rehearse the demo.