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Cover image for DevStretch: The Antiburnout Protocol for Devs Who Forgot They Have Bodies

DevStretch: The Antiburnout Protocol for Devs Who Forgot They Have Bodies

Thea on March 01, 2026

The Community Let’s be honest: most of us treat our physical bodies like a deprecated legacy dependency. It’s still running, it’s techni...
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david duymelinck

but it hasn't had an update in years

I would say it has years of technical debt. Too much to fix without restarting the project.

It looks like a fun project and I love the use of the API's.

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Thea

Lol, exactly! I’m trying to avoid a full “hardware refresh” for as long as possible. Incremental spine refactoring is much cheaper 😄
And thank you 😊

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Carolyn Boyle

This is fantastic! Thank you.

The crisis sensor in my chair chose to activate while I was in the middle of this weekend sprint challenge, and now I can't adjust the height and my back is killing me.

I know include neck rolls as a part of every git push.

Much needed.

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Thea

I feel this🙈
I actually had my own chair crisis recently, and that’s part of what pushed me to build this, and I’ve been trying to work standing more often now, and it really makes a difference...
Neck rolls after every git push is a solid rule, though:)
Hope your back feels better soon!

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Leniel Luzardo

Very well designed, very inspirational and a great idea that proof that software can be not only functional but beautiful and fun too!

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Thea

Thank you! We spend so much time in terminals and code editors, so I wanted to build something familiar but fun 😊

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Nikoloz Turazashvili (@axrisi)

in case if you don't see my comment will post it here as well:

Hey! Love the project - the terminal aesthetic and zero-dependency approach is really clean.
I put together a PR that replaces the browser TTS with pre-generated ElevenLabs audio for higher quality voice guidance, while keeping full offline support through the Service Worker cache: PR #2

feat: replace browser TTS with pre-generated ElevenLabs audio #2

Replaces window.speechSynthesis (browser TTS) with high-quality pre-generated ElevenLabs audio files.

  • All 103 voice clips are cached by the Service Worker for full offline support
  • Includes a Node.js generation script (scripts/generate-tts.js) for reproducibility
  • Matches the original voice flow exactly (only exercise 1 gets full description read aloud)
  • Custom audio queue system handles sequential playback and graceful cancellation seamlessly

Would love to hear what you think!

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Thea

Answering here as well. Thank you so much! 🙏
The audio quality is impressive, but I want to keep the app fully lightweight and dependency-free; that was one of the core goals from the start.

Also tbh, the slightly robotic browser TTS fits the terminal aesthetic better than I expected, it feels almost intentional 🤭

So I’ll stick with the native browser APIs for now. Though this is a very cool approach and a great reference for anyone who wants higher-quality audio in their own fork!

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Alexander van Rossum

Absolutely love the spirit and intent behind this.

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Thea

Thank you 😊 Small habits > long-term damage

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Chandravijay Agrawal

this is so good, probably best thing i have seen being made

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Thea

Aww thank you! I built it for devs, so I’m happy it resonates 😊

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Arend-Jan Van Drongelen

I really like this. Great style, and fun stuff! The green countdown timer gets me:) Favorite: git commit--water.

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Thea

Thank you! And yes, git commit --water might be the most important command in the whole project :)

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Igor Ferreira Magalhães Silva

guys, we all need to make an work out. I recommend Jiu jitsu, everyone of us need to knows a martial art, BJJ (brazilian jiu jitsu) is perfect for our body, and mindset, Try it someday.

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Kiran Chavan

Demo link showing just blank black page

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Thea

Sorry about that! Which browser and OS you're on?

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Frank Chan

wow needed this! Especially with AI this is a must now more than ever

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Thea

Exactly! AI helps us code faster, but we also sit longer lol, so stretch breaks matter even more :)

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Thea

You are welcome! That means a lot 😊

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Rubayet Hassan

This is really cool!

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Thea

Thanks! Glad you like it:)

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Paradox

Wow! That's such an cool idea! I really liked your idea so much! It's very unique to be honest! You just caught something that people don't usually grasp bro

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Thea

Thank you so much! So happy the idea clicked 😊