FlowState: AI Context Switcher

AI-powered context capsules that let you pause and resume your brain like a video game save file.

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Inspiration

I lose roughly 23 minutes every time I get interrupted mid-task. Not because I'm slow, but because human working memory is fragile. I'd come back to my desk and spend the first 20 minutes just trying to remember what I was even thinking. No tool I tried actually solved this. Notion, Todoist, Linear, they all help you organize tasks. None of them help you resume a mental state.

What it does

FlowState is an AI-powered context switcher that preserves your exact mental state before you switch tasks, and re-inflates it in under 60 seconds when you return.

The flow:

  1. Brain Dump (30 sec): before switching away, you fill a guided dump: where you left off, blockers, next step, energy level. You can also paste a code snippet or your open URLs for richer context. Voice input makes it even faster.
  2. AI Context Capsule : Groq AI (Llama 3.3 70B) compresses everything into a precise structured capsule: summary, next step, blockers, risk level, code insight, focus mode - in under 1 second.
  3. Cold Start Resume : when you return, AI generates a Cold Start Challenge: a sharp question that forces your brain to re-engage before you touch the keyboard. Not just a readback - a genuine cognitive trigger.

How we built it

  • Frontend: React + Vite - chosen for speed of development and zero config overhead
  • AI Backbone: Groq API (llama-3.3-70b-versatile) - free tier, ~800 tokens/sec, OpenAI-compatible format. The speed makes the demo feel like magic.
  • Voice Input: Web Speech API - native browser API, zero cost, zero dependencies
  • Storage: localStorage - intentionally local-first for privacy. No database, no accounts, no tracking.
  • Deploy: Vercel - 2-minute deploy with zero config

Challenges we ran into

  • Getting Groq to reliably return clean JSON (fixed with strict system prompts + markdown fence stripping + try-catch fallback)
  • Web Speech API browser compatibility - works best in Chrome and Edge, limited in Firefox
  • Designing the Cold Start Challenge prompt to feel like a genuine focus trigger, not just a summary repeat
  • Balancing the UI between information density and visual clarity with glassmorphism

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • The voice-to-capsule flow works end-to-end in under 3 seconds total
  • The AI-generated Cold Start Challenge is genuinely useful — judges who tried it said it actually made them think
  • 100% local-first: no account creation, no data collection, no server storage
  • The glassmorphism UI with animated gradient orbs looks nothing like a typical hackathon project

What we learned

  • Prompt engineering is half the product - the capsule compression prompt took 6+ iterations to get right
  • Groq's speed (vs other APIs) is a genuine UX differentiator, not just a benchmark number
  • The demo video matters as much as the code - story-first beats feature-list every time
  • localStorage + good UX is underrated - users don't need a cloud database for personal productivity tools

What's next for FlowState

  • Browser extension - passive tab snapshot so users don't have to manually paste URLs
  • Team mode - share context capsules when handing off work to a teammate
  • Calendar integration - auto-prompt brain dump 2 minutes before a calendar event starts
  • Offline LLM support via Ollama - for fully air-gapped, zero-API-cost privacy

Built at

United Hacks V7 — July 2026 — General Track

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