Discipline

A tiny macOS menu bar app for focus: light-blue border around the screen, a small countdown bottom-right with an unblock button, and system-wide blocking of X/Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch and Reddit via /etc/hosts.

One-time setup

git clone https://github.com/Milbaxter/discipline.git
cd discipline
./build.sh
sudo ./install.sh

This installs a root-owned helper at /usr/local/bin/discipline-hosts and a sudoers rule so the app can toggle blocking without password prompts. The helper only ever touches the section of /etc/hosts between # >>> discipline >>> and # <<< discipline <<< markers.

Use

Launch Discipline from /Applications (Spotlight: "Discipline"). It lives in the menu bar as ◇.

• Start Focus — untimed session (timer counts up)
• Focus 25/50/90 min — countdown; border shifts amber in the last 10 min, chime + auto-unblock at zero
• unblock button (bottom-right pill) or Stop Session — ends the session and restores your hosts file
• todos panel (above the timer pill) — your open Todoist tasks, fetched at session start. Optional: put an API token in ~/.config/discipline/todoist_token to enable it. The ✕ hides it for the current session; every new session shows it again.
• Quitting the app also unblocks.

When a session starts, open Brave tabs on blocked sites are closed automatically (macOS will ask once to allow Discipline to control Brave).

Crash safety

Blocking never depends on a clean exit: the app strips any leftover block section every time it launches, on quit, and on SIGINT/SIGTERM. If sites are ever stuck blocked with the app gone, run:

sudo /usr/local/bin/discipline-hosts unblock

Rebuild after code changes

./build.sh   # compiles and refreshes /Applications/Discipline.app

Note: some Command Line Tools installs ship a duplicate SwiftBridging modulemap that breaks all Swift compiles; if yours does, build.sh detects it and works around it with the VFS overlay in toolchain-fix/. Permanent fix (optional):

sudo mv /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/include/swift/module.modulemap{,.bak}

Files

• Sources/discipline/ — the app (AppKit, no dependencies)
• scripts/discipline-hosts — root helper that edits /etc/hosts
• install.sh — one-time sudo setup
• build.sh — rebuild + reinstall the .app