Real work buys real breaks.
A break you didn’t earn follows you back to work. With OffMain, your distractions stay blocked until your GitHub activity unlocks them.
What the beta needs and measures
The beta needs a Mac or an iPhone, and a repo you actually push to. Beta builds send us one summary a day: counts and rough time ranges, nothing else. Never which apps you use, never exact timestamps, never browsing history, never code. A settings switch turns it off. Nobody sees this data except us.
Joining emails you about the beta and the occasional OffMain update, nothing else. Unsubscribe anytime, or read the privacy policy.
Simulated demo*
Your agent is running, so you tab over to YouTube. Gloria Mark’s lab at UC Irvine says that switch costs you about 23 minutes of focus.
From work to break
Sign in with GitHub, choose the apps and sites to block and when. This is your one contract.
the tomorrow rule
“If you beg and pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster.”
Odysseus heard the song and ordered his crew to untie him, but their ears were full of wax. If you loosen your contract tonight, the change is not in effect until the morning. A Ulysses contract.
Where it runs
Blocks your sites in every browser on the machine.
asks for a system extensionBlocks the apps and sites you set.
asks for Screen Time permissionBlocks your websites in the browser only.
asks for access to the sites you visitBlocks the apps you set.
asks for usage access and an overlayWhere your data goes
The number exists to buy your break. That’s all.
OffMain only reads event metadata. What happened, and in which repo.
The beta logs every summary it sends to our backend. You can switch it off at any time.
Asked, answered
You can; it’s your machine. OffMain isn’t a jail and doesn’t pretend to be. You can delete your account and everything in it whenever you want.
Sure. Point an agent at a repo, push nonsense, and the minutes land. But you’ll know you faked it, and that hollow feeling is the exact thing you were trying to get away from. OffMain is a deal with yourself, not a lie detector.
▸I work solo. No PRs, no reviews.
Covered. The solo preset pays more for the work solo folks actually do: issues you close and releases you cut.
▸What earns minutes?
Six GitHub signals, each weighted to approximate the amount of mental effort. The defaults are starting numbers, not rules. Change any of them.
▸What happens when my balance hits zero?
The block stays up. No override. That’s the whole point. Every morning a balance under 15 minutes tops up to 15, so you’re never more than one small break from okay.
▸When does the day roll over?
4am, your local time. A late night stays on the day it belongs to, and the top-up lands while you sleep.
▸Does it block me at 9pm on a Saturday?
Only if you told it to. The contract runs during the windows you set, weekday work hours by default. Outside them nothing is blocked and breaks cost nothing.
▸Why does the Mac app need a system extension?
Because a block you can dodge by opening a different browser isn’t a block. OffMain uses Apple’s own content-filter machinery to block the sites you named machine-wide. On the Mac that means sites, not native apps. the full story
“I used to think the problem was discipline. Turns out it was actually that YouTube is one click away, and the hard task isn’t. I’ve experienced over ten years of that cycle. Not every day, but often enough. OffMain locks the easy route. It doesn’t try to trick you into thinking the hard task feels good.”
Darec · OffMainKansas City, MO
Don’t fight your distractions. Out-ship them.
What the beta needs and measures
The beta needs a Mac or an iPhone, and a repo you actually push to. Beta builds send us one summary a day: counts and rough time ranges, nothing else. Never which apps you use, never exact timestamps, never browsing history, never code. A settings switch turns it off. Nobody sees this data except us.
Joining emails you about the beta and the occasional OffMain update, nothing else. Unsubscribe anytime, or read the privacy policy.