Tiny Pomodoro

Overview

I kept reaching for Spotify and the same three websites on autopilot mid-focus. Tiny Pomodoro is the fix: a compact, always-on-top Windows timer in C# and WPF that removes those distractions during a session and pulls in my real task list, then restores everything the moment I pause. Built with Claude Code, as a way to explore AI-assisted development on a problem I actually wanted solved.

Technical Highlights

• Website blocking via the hosts file. HostsFileBlocker writes 0.0.0.0 redirects for chosen domains into the Windows hosts file and flushes the DNS cache, then removes them again on pause or break. See HostsFileBlocker.cs.
• Process killing with a watchdog. ProcessBlocker kills named apps such as Spotify on focus start and re-kills them on every tick, so they cannot quietly be reopened until the session ends. See ProcessBlocker.cs.
• Edge-triggered focus guard. FocusGuard makes sure block and unblock only fire on real state transitions rather than on every timer tick. See FocusGuard.cs.
• Todoist and ClickUp integration. Vendor-specific gateways fetch tasks over HTTP with retry and backoff, routed through a common ITaskGateway so the UI stays vendor-neutral. See HttpTodoistGateway.cs.
• Undoable completion. Completing a task is held for a couple of seconds before it commits, so an accidental tap can be taken back. See SessionController.cs.
• Stats that actually surface. A seven-day by twenty-four-hour heatmap and daily streaks are computed from a JSON session log. See SessionStats.cs.

A SessionController choreographs the timer, task list and blockers and is the one piece I kept fully unit-tested; API tokens are stored encrypted with DPAPI.

Learnings

Even on a personal tool, keeping the coordination logic cleanly separated and unit-tested paid off, and moving fast without letting the design drift was the real exercise.