Nudge10, An anti-doomscrolling focus companion built for a friend who struggles to stay productive for even 10 minutes.

Rohan Sonu Bablani — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:30:19 +0000

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend

What I Built

My friend has a problem that probably sounds familiar: he can spend a ridiculous amount of time doomscrolling, but when it comes to doing something productive, staying focused for even 10 minutes can be difficult.

So I built Nudge10 specifically for him.

Nudge10 turns a large or vague task into one small, concrete 10-minute mission.

Instead of:

"Finish my DBMS assignment."

it might give him:

Open Question 1 and complete the next small step.

Then the 10-minute session starts.

While the session is active, the Nudge10 Chrome extension can detect selected distraction sites such as YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, and X. When that happens, Nudge10 generates a short AI intervention designed to get the user back to the task without guilt or a motivational lecture.

The goal isn't to make someone suddenly become perfectly disciplined.

It's much simpler:

Make the next 10 minutes easier to start.

I also gave Nudge10 to the friend I built it for, and he liked the experience enough to see himself actually using it.

Demo

Live Demo:
https://nudge10-9tli.onrender.com

Video Demo:

Code

GitHub:

Golixco / nudge10

Nudge10

An AI-powered anti-doomscrolling focus companion built for a friend who struggles to stay productive for even 10 minutes.

Nudge10 turns large, vague tasks into tiny 10-minute focus missions, protects active focus sessions from selected distraction sites, and delivers personalized AI interventions backed by durable persistent memory.

Demo

Live Web Application: https://nudge10-9tli.onrender.com
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/Golixco/nudge10
YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/sl0vxohgzsM?si=fzaGLlbtBTCoQXcc

The live production application runs on Render, serving both the FastAPI REST API and the static web client.

Note on Chrome Extension: The Nudge10 browser companion is currently distributed as an unpacked Manifest V3 extension for personal and development use; it is not published on the Chrome Web Store.

What Nudge10 Does

Task Input: The user enters a task they are avoiding or overwhelmed by.
Mission Generation: Google Gemma 3 27B breaks the task down into one concrete, low-friction starting action scoped to a 10-minute sprint.
Session Launch: The user starts the…

View on GitHub

How I Built It

Nudge10 uses Google's Gemma 3 27B, an open-weight model, as the core AI model.

I use Backboard for assistant orchestration and persistent memory, and Render for the production deployment.

The basic architecture is:

User
  │
  ▼
Nudge10 Web App
  │
  ├── Task input
  ├── 10-minute focus sessions
  └── Session lifecycle
  │
  ▼
FastAPI Backend
  │
  ▼
Backboard Assistant
  │
  ├── Persistent memory
  └── Conversation/thread handling
  │
  ▼
Gemma 3 27B
  │
  ▼
Mission / Intervention

The Chrome extension connects the browser side of the experience to the active focus session.

When the user starts a session, the extension stores the active session locally. If the user navigates to a configured distraction domain, the extension sends only the normalized domain category and the session timing needed by the backend.

For example:

{
  "site": "youtube.com",
  "elapsed_seconds": 120
}

It does not send the full URL, search query, page contents, page title, cookies, passwords, or browsing history.

Persistent memory

One of the most useful parts of Nudge10 is its ability to remember how the user prefers to work.

For example:

the user prefers 10-minute focus missions
the user prefers concise, direct instructions
the user doesn't want motivational speeches

Those preferences can influence future sessions.

Nudge10 also distinguishes useful durable behavior from temporary context. A one-off assignment shouldn't automatically become a permanent memory.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

A closed API could absolutely be used to build something like Nudge10.

For me, the value of open innovation is flexibility.

Nudge10 uses an open-weight Gemma model instead of making the core AI experience permanently dependent on one closed model provider. That leaves room to experiment with different models and deployment approaches, and potentially move toward more private or local inference in the future.

That matters for a product dealing with personal productivity behavior.

The browser extension also follows a data-minimization approach. It reacts to a small set of explicitly configured distraction domains instead of collecting a user's general browsing history.

Open innovation didn't make the project possible in a way that a closed API could never have done. Instead, it gave me more control over what sits at the center of the product and more freedom to change that layer later.

My Agent Session

I built Nudge10 with Antigravity and used DevRelay to preserve the development process.

The saved session includes the architecture work, Gemma and Backboard integration, persistent memory implementation, focus-session system, Chrome extension, testing, and Render deployment.

Agent Session:
https://dev.to/agent_sessions/building-nudge10-anti-doomscrolling-focus-companion-with-google-gemma-backboard-zczmyn

Prize Categories

I'm entering Nudge10 in:

Best Use of Gemma
Best Use of Backboard
Best Use of Render

Nudge10 uses Gemma as its open-weight AI model, Backboard for assistant orchestration and persistent memory, and Render for the production deployment.

I built Nudge10 for one friend, but the problem is probably much bigger than one person.

Sometimes the hardest part of productivity isn't knowing what to do.

It's staying with it for the next ten minutes.

DEV Community: Rohan Sonu Bablani

Nudge10, An anti-doomscrolling focus companion built for a friend who struggles to stay productive for even 10 minutes.

What I Built

Demo

Code

Golixco / nudge10

Nudge10

Demo

What Nudge10 Does

How I Built It

Persistent memory

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

My Agent Session

Prize Categories