CORE COOLDOWN

A portable break timer for Windows that reminds you to rest.
Because your time and your body belong to you - not to your screen.

Download latest release

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Why does this exist?

Repetitive strain injury and eye strain are not personal failings. They are the predictable result of systems that treat human attention as an extractable resource. Every person at a screen deserves a tool that gently interrupts the grind - one that serves them, not a subscription model, not an analytics dashboard, not a corporate wellness KPI.

Core Cooldown is a single portable .exe. No installer, no account, no telemetry, no data leaving your machine. Drop it in a folder and run it. It reminds you to rest. That's it.

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💡 Philosophy

Core Cooldown exists because rest is not a luxury. It is a fundamental need that no productivity framework, no employer, and no software platform should gatekeep behind a paywall or a subscription.

This application:

• Collects nothing. No analytics, no telemetry, no usage tracking, no crash reports phoned home. Your break habits are your own business.
• Costs nothing. Not "free tier with limitations." Not "free for personal use." Free, unconditionally, for everyone.
• Requires nothing. No account, no email, no app store, no internet connection after download. It runs on your machine and answers to you alone.
• Owns nothing. Released under CC0 - the most complete relinquishment of rights possible under law. There is no owner. There are no restrictions. The code belongs to the commons.

Tools for human wellbeing should never be enclosed, never be scarce, and never serve a master other than the person using them.

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🖼️ Screenshots

_{Dashboard - Focus timer with countdown ring, status pill, and quick controls}

_{Statistics - Daily summary, compliance rate, streaks, and 7-day history chart}

_{Settings - Grouped configuration cards with live preview}

_{Break Screen - Always-on-top break overlay with activity suggestions}

_{Mini Mode - Compact floating timer, click-through until hovered}

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Features

⏱️ Timer & Breaks

	Feature	Description
🔄	Configurable intervals	Work sessions from 5-120 min, breaks from 1-60 min
🔔	Pre-break warnings	Toast notification + optional sound alert before each break
🛡️	Break enforcement	Always-on-top break window with optional fullscreen mode
🔒	Strict mode	Removes skip and cancel buttons entirely
⏩	Early end	Optionally allow ending a break after 50% completion
😴	Snooze	Delay breaks by a configurable duration (with limits)
⏳	Skip cooldown	Prevents rapid-fire skipping with a cooldown timer
⚡	Immediate breaks	Skip pre-break notification, go straight into break
🎯	Manual break	Start a break anytime from the dashboard or tray menu

🧠 Idle Detection & Smart Breaks

	Feature	Description
💤	Idle auto-pause	Detects inactivity via Windows API and pauses the timer
▶️	Auto-resume	Timer resumes automatically when you return
🌿	Smart breaks	Recognizes natural breaks (stepping away) and optionally counts them toward your daily goal
⚙️	Configurable thresholds	Idle timeout (30-600s) and smart break threshold (2-15 min) are independently adjustable

🧘 Break Activities

Each break shows a randomized suggestion from a curated library of 72 activities across four categories:

Category	Examples
👁️ Eyes	Palming, distance focusing, figure-eights, warm compress visualization, peripheral awareness
🤸 Stretch	Neck rolls, wrist flexion, shoulder blade squeezes, chest openers, spinal twists, hip flexors
🌬️ Breathing	Box breathing, 4-7-8 technique, alternate nostril, diaphragmatic, resonance breathing
🏃 Movement	Calf raises, wall push-ups, balance exercises, gentle squats, toe touches, desk yoga

Activities cycle every 30 seconds and never repeat consecutively.

📅 Working Hours Schedule

A per-day schedule with multiple time ranges per day. The timer only runs during your configured hours - outside those hours, it pauses automatically.

• Monday through Sunday - each day independently togglable
• Multiple ranges per day - for split shifts or non-contiguous work blocks
• Weekend defaults - Saturday and Sunday disabled by default

📊 Statistics & History

	Metric	Description
✅	Today's summary	Breaks completed, skipped, snoozed, and total break time
🌿	Natural breaks	Separately tracked idle breaks (with optional stat inclusion)
📈	Compliance rate	Ratio of completed to total scheduled breaks
🔥	Streak tracking	Current and best consecutive-day streaks
📉	7-day chart	Canvas-rendered bar chart showing daily break history

All statistics stored locally in a plain JSON file next to the executable.

🔊 Sound Effects

Synthesized notification sounds via Web Audio API - no bundled audio files, no network requests.

8 presets: Bell · Chime · Soft · Digital · Harp · Bowl · Rain · Whistle

Sounds play on break start, pre-break warning, and break completion. Volume configurable 0-100%.

⌨️ Global Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + Shift + P	Pause / resume timer
Ctrl + Shift + B	Start break now
Ctrl + Shift + S	Show / hide main window

Works system-wide, even when Core Cooldown is not focused.

🔲 System Tray

• 🎨 Dynamic icon - 32x32 progress arc rendered in real-time (orange = focus, purple = break, dimmed = paused)
• 💬 Countdown tooltip - hover over tray icon to see time remaining
• 📋 Context menu - pause/resume, start break, toggle mini mode, show/hide, quit

📌 Mini Mode

A compact floating timer (200x50px) that sits on top of your other windows.

• 👻 Click-through - completely transparent to mouse events, never blocks what's underneath
• ✋ Hover to grab - hover for a configurable number of seconds and it becomes draggable
• 🖱️ Double-click - opens the main window
• 🔀 Togglable - enable/disable from the tray menu

🎨 Appearance & Customization

Setting	Range
🔍 UI zoom	50-200% with live preview
🎯 Accent color	Hex color picker for the main UI accent
💜 Break color	Separate hex for the break screen ring
🌈 Color schemes	Ocean, Forest, Sunset, Midnight, Dawn
🔤 Countdown font	Google Fonts selector for timer display
🫧 Background blobs	Animated gradient blobs with film grain overlay
🌑 Backdrop opacity	50-100% for the break screen overlay
💬 Break title & message	Fully customizable text shown during breaks
🌙 Dark mode	Always on (the only civilized option)

🔔 Notifications

Native Windows toast notifications for:

• ⏰ Pre-break warnings (configurable seconds before break)
• ✅ Break completion

🪟 Window Behavior

• Frameless window with custom titlebar and drag region
• Transparent background with frosted glass effects
• Window position persistence - main and mini windows remember position between launches
• Animated view transitions - directional fly/scale/fade transitions (700ms, cubicOut easing)

♿ Accessibility

Core Cooldown targets WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance. A break timer for preventing repetitive strain injury should be usable by everyone - including those who already live with disabilities.

	Feature	Description
⌨️	Full keyboard navigation	Every control reachable and operable via keyboard alone. Arrow keys adjust color pickers, steppers, and time spinners. Tab/Shift+Tab cycles through all interactive elements.
🔍	Visible focus indicators	Global :focus-visible outlines on all interactive elements - no hidden or suppressed focus rings
🗣️	Screen reader support	aria-live regions announce timer state changes, break activities, and status updates. Progress rings use role="progressbar" with value text. Stats chart has a screen-reader-accessible data table.
🎯	Focus management	View transitions move focus to the new view's heading. Break screen traps focus to prevent interaction with obscured content.
🎨	Color contrast	All text meets 4.5:1 minimum contrast ratio against dark backgrounds (WCAG AA)
🖥️	Windows High Contrast	forced-colors: active media query maps all theme tokens to system colors
🐢	Reduced motion	prefers-reduced-motion disables all CSS animations/transitions and all JavaScript-driven Web Animations API effects. No functionality lost - just calmer.
🏷️	Descriptive labels	All toggle switches, steppers, buttons, and form controls have descriptive accessible names instead of generic labels

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📦 Portability

Core Cooldown is fully portable. The executable carries everything it needs and stores everything it creates right next to itself:

📁 anywhere-you-want/
├── core-cooldown.exe     ← the application
├── config.json           ← your settings (auto-created on first run)
├── stats.json            ← your break history (auto-created on first run)
└── data/                 ← WebView2 runtime data (auto-created on first run)

• No installer
• No registry entries
• No writes to %APPDATA%, %LOCALAPPDATA%, or any system directory
• Move the folder anywhere - USB stick, shared drive, different machine
• Nothing to uninstall - delete the folder and it's gone, zero traces

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🚀 Installation

1.  Download core-cooldown.exe from the Releases page
2.  Put it in any folder you like
3.  Run it

That's it. No elevated permissions. No runtime dependencies. The first launch may take a moment while Windows initializes the WebView2 runtime.

Download latest release →

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🔨 Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+) and npm
• Rust toolchain (rustup) with the x86_64-pc-windows-gnu target
• MinGW-w64 - the GNU toolchain for Windows (provides linker, windres, dlltool)

Setup

git clone https://git.lashman.live/lashman/core-cooldown.git
cd core-cooldown
npm install

Linker Configuration

Create or edit src-tauri/.cargo/config.toml to point to your MinGW installation:

[build]
target = "x86_64-pc-windows-gnu"

[target.x86_64-pc-windows-gnu]
linker = "C:/path/to/mingw64/bin/gcc.exe"
ar = "C:/path/to/mingw64/bin/ar.exe"

Development

# Launch with hot-reload
npm run tauri dev

# Rust check (no full build)
cd src-tauri && cargo check

# Frontend only (no Tauri shell)
npm run dev

Release Build

npm run tauri build

Output: src-tauri/target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/release/core-cooldown.exe

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🏗️ Architecture

A split-architecture desktop app: Rust backend for system integration and timer logic, Svelte frontend rendered in a native WebView.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        System Tray                           │
│              (dynamic icon · tooltip · menu)                 │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                              │
│   ┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────────┐    ┌─────────────┐       │
│   │ Main Window │   │ Break Window│    │ Mini Window │       │
│   │  (WebView)  │   │  (WebView)  │    │  (WebView)  │       │
│   └──────┬──────┘   └──────┬──────┘    └──────┬──────┘       │
│          │                 │                  │              │
│          └─────────┬───────┴──────────────────┘              │
│                    │  Tauri IPC                              │
│          ┌─────────┴─────────┐                               │
│          │   Rust Backend    │                               │
│          │                   │                               │
│          │  TimerManager     │  state machine (1 tick/sec)   │
│          │  Config           │  JSON persistence (portable)  │
│          │  Stats            │  break history tracking       │
│          │  IdleDetector     │  GetLastInputInfo polling     │
│          │  GlobalShortcuts  │  Ctrl+Shift+P/B/S             │
│          │  TrayIcon         │  RGBA ring rendering          │
│          │  Notifications    │  Windows toast                │
│          └───────────────────┘                               │
│                                                              │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Backend modules (Rust)

Module	Responsibility
lib.rs	Tauri app builder, command registration, tray setup, timer tick thread, window management, global shortcuts
config.rs	Config struct with serde serialization, validation (clamping all values to safe ranges), portable file I/O
timer.rs	Timer state machine (Running / Paused / BreakActive), idle detection via Windows API, working hours enforcement
stats.rs	Daily break statistics, streak calculation, history queries
main.rs	Entry point, WebView2 Runtime detection
msvc_compat.rs	MSVC CRT compatibility stubs for static WebView2Loader linking on MinGW

Frontend layers (Svelte 5 + TypeScript)

Layer	Files
Views	Dashboard, BreakScreen, Settings, StatsView
Windows	BreakWindow (standalone break modal), MiniTimer (floating mini mode)
Components	TimerRing, Titlebar, ToggleSwitch, Stepper, ColorPicker, FontSelector, TimeSpinner, BackgroundBlobs
Stores	timer.ts (reactive timer state from IPC events), config.ts (config with debounced auto-save)
Utilities	sounds.ts (Web Audio synthesis), activities.ts (72 break activities), animate.ts (motion library)

IPC contract

Commands (frontend → backend): get_config · save_config · update_pending_config · reset_config · toggle_timer · start_break_now · cancel_break · snooze · get_timer_state · set_view · get_stats · get_daily_history · get_cursor_position · save_window_position

Events (backend → frontend): timer-tick · break-started · break-ended · prebreak-warning · config-changed · natural-break-detected

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⚙️ Configuration Reference

All settings stored in config.json next to the executable. The settings panel exposes every option with live validation, but the file is plain JSON and can be edited by hand.

Full configuration schema (35 keys)

Key	Type	Default	Range	Description
break_duration	u32	5	1-60 min	Duration of each break
break_frequency	u32	25	5-120 min	Interval between breaks
auto_start	bool	true	-	Start timer on launch
break_title	string	"Rest your eyes"	max 100 chars	Title shown on break screen
break_message	string	"Look away..."	max 500 chars	Message shown during breaks
fullscreen_mode	bool	true	-	Use fullscreen break window
strict_mode	bool	false	-	Remove skip/cancel buttons
allow_end_early	bool	true	-	Allow ending break after 50%
immediately_start_breaks	bool	false	-	Skip pre-break notification
working_hours_enabled	bool	false	-	Restrict timer to schedule
working_hours_schedule	array	Mon-Fri 09-18	7 days	Per-day time ranges
dark_mode	bool	true	-	Dark theme
color_scheme	string	"Ocean"	5 presets	Color scheme name
backdrop_opacity	f32	0.92	0.5-1.0	Break screen opacity
notification_enabled	bool	true	-	Enable toast notifications
notification_before_break	u32	30	0-300 sec	Pre-break warning time
snooze_duration	u32	5	1-30 min	Snooze delay
snooze_limit	u32	3	0-5	Max snoozes per cycle
skip_cooldown	u32	60	0-600 sec	Cooldown between skips
sound_enabled	bool	true	-	Play notification sounds
sound_volume	u32	70	0-100	Volume percentage
sound_preset	string	"bell"	8 presets	Sound preset name
idle_detection_enabled	bool	true	-	Enable idle auto-pause
idle_timeout	u32	120	30-600 sec	Idle threshold
smart_breaks_enabled	bool	true	-	Detect natural breaks
smart_break_threshold	u32	300	120-900 sec	Natural break threshold
smart_break_count_stats	bool	false	-	Count natural breaks in stats
show_break_activities	bool	true	-	Show activity suggestions
ui_zoom	u32	100	50-200%	Interface zoom level
accent_color	string	"#ff4d00"	hex	Main accent color
break_color	string	"#7c6aef"	hex	Break screen ring color
countdown_font	string	""	font family	Google Font for countdown
background_blobs_enabled	bool	false	-	Animated background blobs
mini_click_through	bool	true	-	Mini mode click-through
mini_hover_threshold	f32	3.0	1.0-10.0 sec	Hover delay before drag

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📚 Dependencies

Rust crates

Crate	Purpose
tauri 2	Application shell, IPC, multi-window, system tray
tauri-plugin-shell 2	Shell integration
tauri-plugin-notification 2	Windows toast notifications
tauri-plugin-global-shortcut 2	System-wide keyboard shortcuts
serde / serde_json	Config and stats serialization
chrono	Date/time handling for schedules and statistics
anyhow	Error handling
winapi	Windows idle detection (GetLastInputInfo), WebView2 check dialog

JavaScript packages

Package	Purpose
@tauri-apps/api	Frontend IPC bindings
svelte 5	Reactive UI framework (runes: $state, $derived, $effect)
tailwindcss 4	Utility-first CSS
vite 6	Build tool and dev server
motion	Animation library
typescript 5	Type safety

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🤝 Contributing

This project belongs to no one and everyone. If you find it useful and want to make it better, you are welcome.

No contribution agreements to sign. No corporate CLAs. No licensing traps. Everything here is in the public domain. Your contributions will be too - freely given, freely shared, freely built upon by anyone who needs them.

Some ways to help:

• 🐛 Report bugs or rough edges
• 🧘 Suggest new break activities (especially with physiotherapy or ergonomics knowledge)
• ♿ Improve accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA foundation is in place - help us push further)
• 🐧 Port idle detection to macOS/Linux
• 🌍 Translate the interface
• 💌 Share it with someone who needs it

The best software is built through mutual aid - people helping people because it's the right thing to do, not because there's a profit motive attached.

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📄 License

CC0 1.0 Universal - Public Domain Dedication

To the extent possible under law, the author has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work. Published from the commons, for the commons.

Copy, modify, distribute, perform - even commercially - all without asking permission. No attribution required (though always appreciated).

See LICENSE for the full legal text.

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_{Built with care. Shared without conditions. 🧊
Rest well.}