Vigil — light a candle

A quiet daily candle for someone important, the days you would rather not let pass, and letters you write but never send.

Some days you just want to light a candle. Vigil is a small, quiet place to do that — for someone who died, someone who left, something you lost, or something you are hoping for. HOW IT WORKS Click the toolbar icon and Vigil opens in Chrome's side panel, beside whatever you were already doing. Press one button. The candle lights, and it stays lit while you work. There is nothing to type, nothing to name, and no account to make. Tomorrow, if you want to, you light another one. Every candle you have ever lit is kept in a private record on your own computer. DAYS THAT MATTER Tell Vigil about the dates you do not want to go past without noticing — a birthday, the day someone died, the day you met. It brings each one up quietly when it is close, on the day itself, and for a few days afterwards, because the days after an anniversary are often heavier than the day. There is no countdown. A day stays out of sight until it enters the notice you chose for it, and even then Vigil says "on Thursday" rather than showing you a number. You pick how much warning you want, including none at all. A yahrzeit follows the Hebrew calendar, so its Gregorian date moves every year. The same is true of Hijri dates and the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Vigil tracks a day in whichever calendar you chose and works out the date each year, instead of pinning it to the wrong one — and it tells you on screen when a date needed a judgement call, such as which Adar it used in a Hebrew leap year. NO STREAK TO BREAK Most things that ask you to come back every day use a streak — a number that climbs while you keep showing up and drops to zero the moment you miss. In something built around remembering a person, a broken streak does not feel like failing at an app. It feels like failing them. So Vigil has no streak, and nothing in it can ever go down. Candles accumulate. Milestones are cumulative or seasonal — "all four seasons", "a year and a day" — and one of them, "you came back", is earned only by being away and returning. The longer you were gone, the warmer the words when you get back. Absence is worth something here instead of costing you something. LETTER TO THE VOID Write anything — to someone who died, to someone who left, to nobody. When you are finished, burn it. The words catch, drift, and go out. Vigil never saves the text, never sends it, and never keeps a copy; there is no draft and no autosave. All that is recorded is that you did it once. FEATURES • Light one candle a day, in Chrome's side panel, in a single click • Keep the dates that matter, with as much or as little advance notice as you want • Hebrew, Hijri, Chinese, Indian and Persian calendars as well as Gregorian • A twelve-month map of what is coming, with nothing to fall behind on • A private record of every candle you have ever lit, kept only on your computer • "You came back" — a milestone you earn by returning after time away • Letter to the void: write something, burn it, keep nothing • Name who the candle is for, or leave it unnamed • Hide every number if counting is not what you want; the candle still works • Fourteen cumulative milestones, including two for showing up on a day that mattered • Export your record as a file, or erase everything, at any time • Full keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, and a still flame for anyone who needs one PRIVACY Vigil makes no network requests of any kind. There is no account, no analytics, no sync, and no remote fonts or images. Everything it stores — a list of dates, a count of released letters, your important days, and one optional line of text — stays in Chrome's local storage on your own computer and is never uploaded anywhere. Vigil cannot read any web page you visit, because it has no permission to and no code that would. PERMISSIONS, IN PLAIN ENGLISH • Storage — to remember your candles on this computer. Nothing is sent anywhere. • Side panel — to open Vigil in Chrome's side panel when you click the icon. • Alarms — a once-an-hour timer so the small dot on the toolbar icon is correct after midnight. It sends no notifications and shows no reminders. Vigil asks for no access to your tabs, your browsing history, or the contents of any website. A NOTE ON WHAT THIS IS NOT Vigil is a small ritual, not treatment, and not a crisis service. Writing something down and destroying it is an old practice with some supportive research behind it, but the evidence is modest and none of it was done on a browser extension. If grief is not lifting, or it is getting harder rather than easier, a bereavement counsellor will help more than this will. If you need to talk to someone right now: in the US, call, text or chat 988, or text HOME to 741741 to reach Crisis Text Line. Outside the US, findahelpline.com lists services by country. These are shown on every screen in Vigil, not buried in a menu. SUPPORT AND CHANGES Problems, requests and bug reports: dhseadev.online/projects/vigil/ Version 1.1.0 — adds Days: important dates with a notice window you choose, a twelve-month view, non-Gregorian calendar support for anniversaries that move, and two milestones for showing up on a day that mattered. Version 1.0.0 — first release. Built by DHSeaDev in Iowa. There is a candle on the web too, at dhseadev.online/candle.