Inspiration
The project was born from a simple observation: most website blockers are too easy to ignore. We wanted to move away from "boring" blockers and instead weaponize social accountability. By forcing users to face their future professional selves through the lens of a "disciplinary hearing," we turned a lapse in focus into a high-stakes ritual of repentance.
What it does
Core Functionality Detection: It monitors your browser for specific "spiritually suspicious" URLs or demo triggers. Lockout: Once a forbidden site is accessed, the extension replaces the entire page with a high-contrast disciplinary overlay, locking you out of the original content. The Repentance Task: You are forced to type a sincere, 50-word apology essay within a strict time limit. Anti-Cheating Measures: The system detects and penalizes "unproductive" behavior, such as copy-pasting or repeating words, by deducting time from your countdown. The Consequence If you fail to finish the apology before the timer runs out, the extension triggers a professional "intervention": LinkedIn Integration: It automatically opens a LinkedIn share window with a pre-written, corporate-style "growth mindset" confession draft. Social Pressure: The draft includes a public admission of your browsing lapse and hashtags like #Productivity and #Accountability to leverage professional social pressure. Safety and Demo Features Manual Control: It does not post to LinkedIn automatically; it only opens the draft so you can see the potential consequence. Exclusions: The extension is programmed to ignore internal Chrome pages and LinkedIn itself to avoid accidental lockouts.
How we built it
Church Bench is a Chrome Extension built using Manifest V3. The architecture consists of several moving parts:
Background logic: A service worker monitors tab updates and checks URLs against a specific "demo trigger" policy.
Content Injection: When a "spiritually suspicious" URL is detected, the extension injects a high-contrast CSS overlay and a JavaScript timer.
The Repentance Engine: We built a word-count validator that requires a 50-word apology.
Consequence System: If the user fails to repent before the timer hits zero, the extension generates a LinkedIn share draft filled with corporate "growth mindset" buzzwords.
Challenges we ran into
nothing. we are just goated
Accomplishments that we're proud of
everything we did this in under 2hours
What we learned
We learned how to effectively manage the DOM and browser state during a "lockout" scenario. To ensure the user focuses entirely on their apology, we implemented several constraints:
Duplicate word penalties: Repeating words to cheat the count results in a time penalty.
Users cannot copy-paste their way out of a hearing.
What's next for Church Bench
App store implementation
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