Asterly — Focus Familiar

An animated focus companion with one-click rituals, reliable blocking, private insights, and encrypted sync.

Meet the focus timer that feels alive. Asterly pairs dependable distraction protection with an original celestial familiar who reads beside you. Choose a chapter length, select the sites that distract you, and begin. Your companion blinks, turns pages, breathes softly, and rests in changing candlelight while the timer continues after the popup closes. START IN UNDER A MINUTE • A short guided setup helps you choose a timer and common distractions • Ready-made Deep Work settings let you begin without configuring every feature • Helpful features appear along the way instead of all at once • Clear in-app guides explain boundaries, rewards, familiars, cycles, and insights where you use them • Earn sparks by focusing, unlock new familiars and habitats, then switch them directly from the companion BEAUTIFUL FOCUS THAT FEELS ALIVE • Countdown, stopwatch, Pomodoro, and custom one-to-eight-round focus cycles • Six collectible animated familiars and four living habitats • Natural blinking, complete page turns, breathing, ambient light, constellation progress, and completion blooms • Optional local rain, night, hearth, and deep-space soundscapes • Reduced-motion support without losing important information SERIOUS, RELIABLE BOUNDARIES • Editable blocklist and allowlist profiles • Strict mode with a deliberate release safeguard • Scheduled Time Guards, including correct overnight schedules • Feed Veil protection for distracting sections such as Shorts or Explore while useful pages remain available • Immediate Activation Sweep for protected sites already open when focus begins • Intentional Detours with a configurable daily allowance and optional Moonpause countdown • Offline Boundary Check and live Boundary Engine health verification • Up to 1,000 normalized domains per profile, with honest validation and no silent truncation • Fail-closed protection: a focus timer cannot claim to be running until Chrome verifies the complete boundary A CALMER WAY BACK When a protected site interrupts a chapter, Asterly shows a quiet return page rather than a guilt message. Chapter Anchor keeps the active intention and truthful remaining time visible. Return Trail brings forward a safe work tab without storing its URL or title. Orbit Shield turns deduplicated protected moments into private starlight. FOCUS RHYTHMS FOR REAL LIFE • Pause limits, automatic breaks, and mindful 4–2–6 breathing guidance • Optional Afterglow that keeps protection active while extra flow time counts upward • Recovery Constellation for an intentional break at any time • Rewind Constellation to restart a chapter without fabricating history or rewards • Focus Rituals that restore a task, timer, boundary, strictness, and ambience together • Ritual Almanac invitations at the beginning of selected Time Guards—never an unwanted automatic start • Orbit Invitations for scheduling a private device-local reminder to begin an exact queued chapter • Chapter Queue for planning, editing, reprioritizing, undoing, and starting upcoming work • Keyboard commands and an optional persistent side-panel companion REWARDS THAT MAKE RETURNING FUN Completed chapters become stars in a private Celestial Archive and earn sparks for collectible familiars and habitats. See what is unlocked, what comes next, and switch your companion without leaving the focus screen. Asterly also includes daily goals, achievements, Moonpath seasons, focus reflections, 7/30/90-day insights, a twelve-week consistency map, and Year in Starlight. Prefer less pressure? Gentle Orbit keeps every chapter and reward but replaces streaks, quotas, deadlines, and rankings with calm return-focused language. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT Core focus, blocking, history, rewards, rituals, and customization work locally without an account. Asterly includes no ads and no analytics SDK. It has no browsing-history permission and runs no persistent content script that reads pages. User-defined boundaries require access to HTTP(S) addresses. Asterly evaluates relevant addresses locally to enforce the boundary. Activation Sweep stores only an aggregate redirect count. Optional Private Boundary Wins keeps a bounded protected-domain log only on the current device; it can be disabled or cleared and is never synchronized. OPTIONAL ENCRYPTED CONTINUITY Users who configure a compatible HTTPS service can enable: • End-to-end encrypted cross-device backup using a recovery key Asterly never uploads • Ten-minute pairing codes for another browser you own • Private live Focus Together rooms • Persistent Focus Circles that share aggregate progress—not task names or browsing history Network features are optional. Asterly rejects insecure remote service addresses and executes no remote JavaScript or WebAssembly. THOUGHTFUL DETAILS • A private Thought Vault for parking distracting ideas • Completion notifications, distinct focus/break chimes, and bounded reminders • Orbit Clock toolbar time, completion beacon, and scheduled-guard beacon • Completion Harbor so a finished chapter remains visible even if the operating system hides a notification • Reflections and a private Focus Compass derived only from your own history • Safe portable JSON backup with validation and one-click rollback • Incognito readiness that never claims protection until Chrome's permission is granted • Accessibility labels, keyboard navigation, responsive 320-pixel layouts, and in-app reduced motion Asterly is designed around one simple journey: choose what matters, protect the chapter, and return with a little more starlight—and a companion who is glad you came back.