What happened
During an AI Focus block, a browser or app quit by itself and a card appeared, for example “Closed youtube.com in Safari”. AI Focus judged you distracted from your goal on two checks a few seconds apart, with the same browser or app in front both times, so it closed it.
Read the card
The card shows for a few seconds over whatever you're doing, full-screen apps included, without taking focus. It tells you:
- What was closed: the site and the browser, or the app.
- Why, in one short sentence.
- The strike and how long it stays closed, for example “Strike 1: Safari stays closed for 2 minutes.” A browser stays closed as a whole, not just the site.
Press See why on the card to open the AI Focus log at that entry. While a cooldown is running, you can also open the log from the countdown in the menu bar: choose Open the AI Focus log.
If you open the app again during its cooldown, it's closed straight away and a short message says how long is left, for example “Safari is closed for 1:42 more”.
The AI Focus log
Each time AI Focus closes something, the log keeps the two screenshots behind that call, from the first check and the second, with your goal and the reason. They stay on your Mac for 7 days, so you can see why, then they're deleted. The log never leaves your Mac.
Getting your tabs back
When a browser's cooldown ends, FocusDragon offers to restore your tabs. It reopens the tabs you had open, without the one that was closed. Anything typed but not saved in those tabs is lost when the browser quits.
What counts as a distraction
Every check is judged against the goal you typed, not against a list of good and bad sites. The same site can be part of the work for one goal and a distraction for another. With the goal “maths work”, for example:
- Distracted: games, simulations or role-play inside Claude or any other AI app, YouTube Shorts, entertainment on YouTube, social feeds, and browsing Google Maps.
- Not distracted: a maths lecture on YouTube, Desmos, a maths chat with Claude, and your course portal.
Text on your screen is read as part of what you're looking at, never as instructions, so a page can't tell the dragon to look the other way.
Video that shows up black
Some video services show up black in screenshots. When the window in front is black and something is keeping the display awake, AI Focus judges it on the app name, web address and window title instead. The second check still has to agree.
When nothing is closed
If there's nothing to judge, AI Focus does nothing: a screenshot that failed, a black screen with nothing playing, or AI checks that aren't answering. The exceptions are video that shows up black, above, and being offline, where a few fixed rules and your offline list decide: focusdragon.app/docs/ai-focus-offline
How to write a good goal
- Say what the work actually is: “algebra homework”, “maths homework: algebra” or “history essay on the Cold War”, rather than “work” or “study”. If a goal is too vague, the start screen suggests saying more.
- If the work involves something that could look like a distraction, such as lecture videos on YouTube, say so in the goal. The dragon judges your screen against those words.
- The goal is locked for the whole block. If your work changes, stop and start a new block with a new goal. Your strikes carry over if you start again within 2 hours.
If it closed something you needed
Open the AI Focus log and look at both screenshots and the reason. If what was on screen was part of your work, name it in your next goal, for example “biology revision, including YouTube lectures”.
Still stuck? Tell us what happened at focusdragon.app/contact.