🔮 Spellbreak

Break the digital spell. A mystical break-reminder for macOS that interrupts screen trance with lush, full-screen rituals — just enough friction to make skipping conscious, never punitive.

Features

• Aurora in four moods — time-aware (shifts dawn → day → dusk → night), always-warm Ember, always-cool Violet, or Surprise Me (rolls one each break)
• Observational messages — hundreds of lines, rarely the same one twice, tuned to the hour and moon, and they notice when you skip a few. They hint instead of ordering, and can be switched off entirely
• Hold-to-skip — a ring you hold for a beat; duration scales with break length
• Heads-up countdown pill — a gentle warning before the spell lands
• Smart pauses — waits out calls, full-screen games, films, presentations, and the end of your sentence; time away from the Mac counts as a break
• Every display — the break lands on the screen with your pointer; the others dim to match
• Private by design — no accounts, no tracking, no network requests, no camera, never records audio (it only checks whether the mic is busy)

Requirements

• macOS 13.0 (Ventura) or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel

Install

Get it from the Mac App Store (7-day trial, then a one-time unlock), or download from spellbreak.app, move it to Applications, and launch.

Build

./build-app.sh        # production build → build/Spellbreak.app
open build/Spellbreak.app

For a signed / notarized release, see SIGNING_GUIDE.md.

Project layout

Sources/Spellbreak/
├── SpellbreakApp.swift      # entry point, AppState, window controllers
├── OverlayWindow.swift      # full-screen break overlay
├── AuroraBackground.swift   # animated waves + AuroraPalette
├── AmbientParticles.swift   # floating orbs
├── SpellTextGenerator.swift # observational message engine
├── PreferencesView.swift    # Time / Vibes settings
├── MenuViewSimple.swift     # menu bar popover
├── StatusBarController.swift
├── SoundManager.swift
├── Store.swift              # App Store trial + one-time unlock (App Store builds only)
└── Utilities.swift          # palette, ScreenBusy heuristic

Other docs

• APP_STORE.md — store listing copy
• APP_STORE_SUBMISSION.md — Mac App Store submission, step by step
• SIGNING_GUIDE.md — signing, notarization, distribution
• PRIVACY.md — privacy policy
• GLOSSARY.md — code glossary

License

Copyright © 2025–2026 Pablo Alvarado. All rights reserved.

Support

github.com/pibulus/spellbreak