CI/CD pipelines. Containerized environments. Automated testing. One-click deploys.
We spent years building the most efficient development workflow we could.
And then every single day, multiple times an hour, someone on the team would click the URL bar, triple-click to select, delete the domain, type a new one, and hit enter.
Like it's 2005.
Nobody said anything because it felt too small to bring up. It's six seconds. Who complains about six seconds?
The developer who does it 40 times a day. That's who.
Six seconds × 40 times × 5 days = 20 minutes of pure nothing. Every week. Per developer.
Multiply that by a team of 8 and you've lost over 2.5 hours of engineering time every week to something that should have been automated years ago.
We finally fixed it
I built Soft - a Chrome extension that puts a small bar at the top of every configured page.
Click staging. Click prod. Click local.
You land on the exact same path. Query params preserved. Hash preserved. Everything.
What it looks like in practice
You're debugging a checkout issue. You've been going back and forth between staging and prod for 20 minutes.
Before Soft:
staging.myapp.com/checkout/confirm?order=12345&ref=email
→ click URL bar
→ triple click
→ delete "staging."
→ type nothing (it's prod, not staging)
→ wait, delete "myapp.com"
→ type "staging.myapp.com"
→ realize you lost the query params
→ start over
With Soft:
staging.myapp.com/checkout/confirm?order=12345&ref=email
→ click "prod"
→ myapp.com/checkout/confirm?order=12345&ref=email
Done.
The feature I'm most proud of: Danger Mode
The bar turns red when you're on production.
Not subtle.
The entire bar - red, pulsing, impossible to miss.
Because everyone has a story. The migration that ran on prod. The email that went to real users. The record that got deleted.
Danger Mode exists so you never have to tell that story. It's free and always on.
Sticky Notes
Leave floating notes on any page in any environment.
Test cards on your checkout page. Known bugs where they actually appear. Staging credentials you always forget.
I didn't think people would care about this feature. Turns out it's the one developers mention first when they recommend it.
Free vs Pro
Free:
2 apps, 2 environments
Danger Mode — always on
Path-preserving switch
Jump to any environment in a new tab
Pro — $6/month:
Unlimited apps and environments
Sticky notes per page
Team config export as JSON or YAML
2 free uses of sticky notes included before upgrading
After the first week with zero marketing, we got 24 Installs and Users From the US, UK, and Japan.
Real developers found it through Chrome Web Store search. Nobody sent them there. They searched "environment switcher" and installed it.
That's when I knew the problem was real.
Try it here: [https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/soft/dcfgbdenmbfijjioijidacabcpjebnlc]
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