keel

See where your attention goes — and steer it from compulsion toward flourishing.

keel makes your attention visible: where your time goes, how your focus fragments — privately, on your own device. That awareness is the first step; gentle steering toward what helps you flourish comes later, built on your own baselines. A pnpm monorepo of two surfaces.

Surfaces

keel is named by a capability × surface grammar — one core, many edges:

• keel agent (apps/agent) — a Claude Code surface: an activity-log writer + HUD. Gate-free since 2026-08-18; it observes and reports, and denies nothing. Ships as a Claude Code plugin.
• keel browser (apps/browser) — a Chrome extension (WXT): an activity writer (coarse events) + watchlist-gated per-domain sensors (key-action completions) + the blocklist drogue, a commitment device. keel tray was the third surface, a macOS menubar app (Tauri) that wrote desktop activity. It was deleted on 2026-08-21; zenborg's observer replaces it, and it ships off until turned on. Between the two, desktop activity is not being logged.

The domain (apps/browser/modules/domain)

Pure TypeScript: the ActivityEvent log substrate, the read-side derivations built on it (bouts and runs, routes), and the value objects. No runtime dependencies, no fp-ts, no framework — types and pure functions only. This was the @keel/domain workspace package until 2026-08-21; with two of its three consumers gone it was inlined into the third, and the modules nothing imported (rules.ts, tide.ts, areas.ts) were deleted rather than moved. The writers' contract is docs/event-taxonomy.md.

kairos

keel is one instrument of kairos, not a standalone product: keel reads what your attention did, zenborg holds what you meant. Some state belongs to the kernel rather than to keel — areas are defined in zenborg and read from ~/.kairos/areas.json (override with KAIROS_HOME). keel never writes them. docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-06-helm-design.md describes how the pieces compose.

What changed

The shield / signal / budget intervention layer was retired on 2026-06-12 (see docs/decisions/), and keel became observability-first: accumulate raw attention signal, model later. The blocklist drogue — a commitment device — was the retirement's lone survivor.

Interventions came back on 2026-08-05, rebuilt on that accumulated signal, as the friction interpreter (apps/browser/modules/friction/). Rules are data (see docs/primitive-contracts.md), the dwell gate is the one actuator, and everything is scoped by area. The old invariant (ambient observation may arm a gate, never a cooldown) was reversed on 2026-08-21: a rule may arm any primitive, and what protects you is that every armed thing carries a reachable exit, checked in modules/interventions/armed.ts.

The frozen macOS compass app (apps/desktop) was removed on 2026-06-13 — archived at tag desktop-archive-2026-06-13, with its reusable domain gems (drift detection, the BCT/PDP intervention model) mapped in docs/decisions/. Docs describing the retired shield layer live in docs/archive/.

Architecture

Dependencies flow inward: Domain → Application → Infrastructure → UI. The domain stays pure — no fp-ts, no framework. The agent surface is standalone // @ts-check JS (no TS imports — it deploys on its own).

Privacy posture (load-bearing)

Everything stays on your machine. Payloads carry domains and timings, never full URLs or page content. Browser events live in extension-local IndexedDB until you export them; agent events write to ~/.kairos/keel/log/.

Structure

keel/
├── apps/
│   ├── agent/     # Claude Code plugin — activity-log writer + HUD (no gates) + native host
│   └── browser/   # Chrome extension (WXT) — activity writer + sensors + drogue + the domain
├── integrations/
│   └── garmin/    # Garmin body-log poller (Python), run by zenborg's scheduler
├── packages/
│   └── keel-alfred/  # Alfred workflow — global launcher for the ritual system
├── docs/          # event taxonomy, read-side pitfalls, primitive contracts, BCT references
└── package.json   # Workspace scripts

Getting started

pnpm install

pnpm dev:browser     # WXT dev server (browser extension)

pnpm typecheck       # typecheck all packages
pnpm build           # build all packages

Loading the browser extension

After pnpm build:browser, open chrome://extensions, enable Developer mode, and load unpacked from apps/browser/.output/chrome-mv3/.

Seeding the watchlist

node apps/agent/keel.mjs watchlist scan reads your browser history, ranks the domains/routes you return to compulsively, and (after you adjudicate) seeds the observe tier — the domains the browser deep-senses.

Why "keel"

A keel is a boat's backbone — the deep fin that gives a vessel stability and holds its course against wind and current. It's also a near-homophone of equanimity (Pāli upekkhā): the steady, balanced awareness that doesn't capsize in rough conditions.

The vocabulary is nautical throughout, and it isn't decoration — it is the model:

• keel — what keeps your attention steady and on course.
• drift — being pulled off your intended course by the platforms' engineered currents.
• drogue — a sea-anchor that slows a vessel in a storm; here, the blocklist that slows compulsive momentum.

Platforms have removed the natural stopping cues and industrialized craving, aversion, and delusion at scale. keel doesn't block the sea — it gives you a keel to cross it. First it helps you see where you drift; the gentle steering toward what helps you flourish comes later, on your terms.

License

MIT