How sigstop decides it is time to stop, sigstop

Not another pomodoro

A timer doesn't know you're on a call.

That's the whole thing. One of these reads a clock. The other reads a room.

14:02, nineteen minutes into a Slack huddle

A traditional timer

Pomodoronow

Time's up

Take a break.

It read a clock. That is everything it read.

Fires mid-sentence in your standup. You dismiss it. You dismiss the next one out of habit. You uninstall it on Thursday.

sigstop

Nothing arrives.

clock45 min continuous. A break is due.
signalSlack is frontmost.
vetoThe microphone is live.
outcomeWithheld. Not queued, not counted against you.

It read the clock too. Then it read the room.

Meetings

Nothing lands in your Slack huddle.

Or your Google Meet, your Zoom, your Teams call, or the standup you are already halfway through. While a microphone or a camera is live, nothing is drawn on your screen, and nothing is waiting in a queue for the second you hang up. Here is a whole call, minute by minute.

microphonein use by anything
camerain use by anything
fullscreena shared window

A yes or no bit on the device. Reading one is not opening a stream, so macOS asks you for nothing and neither does this.

one call, as the app sees it0 prompts delivered during the call

14:02
Call starts
prompt withheld
Microphone goes live.
14:09
A break comes due
prompt withheld
It is not delivered, and it is not queued. A prompt already on screen when the call started would have been withdrawn.
14:26
You mute
still withheld
Muting and leaving look identical from here, so the app does not guess between them. The hold continues.
14:51
Call ends
grace, still withheld
The meeting app is still open, so the hold runs on rather than stopping the instant the device goes quiet. Never longer than twenty minutes.
14:56
Released
prompt allowed
The work clock was paused for the whole call, so none of it counted towards a break you had not taken.

The case it misses, said out loud

A screen share with the microphone muted and the camera off. Knowing a display is being captured needs the Screen Recording permission, which is the one permission that would let this app read your screen, and it is not going to ask for it. The menu has a line for that: I'm in a meeting.

Same work, redistributed

It's the same eight hours.

This isn't a productivity claim and it isn't a health claim. It's a shape. The work gets done either way, one version just has seams in it.

Without

One block.

span: 9h 00mspan
unbroken: 9h 00munbroken

09:00Start
10:00, Still going
11:30, Deep in the debugger
13:00Notice your back5h 00m unbroken
14:00Keep going anyway7h 00m unbroken
16:00Reading the same line8h 30m unbroken
17:30Diminishing returns9h 00m unbroken

18:00

With sigstop

The same block, with seams cut into it, and two it deliberately refused to cut.

span: 9h 00mspan
seams: 7seams
away from the desk: 1h 10maway from the desk
held back: 2held back

09:00Start
09:45SIGTSTP, a good seam5m
09:50, SIGCONT
10:35SIGTSTP5m
10:40, SIGCONT
11:25Skipped, you're on a call25m
11:50SIGTSTP, call ended5m
11:55, SIGCONT
12:40Lunch. Away from the desk.40m
13:20, SIGCONT
14:05SIGTSTP5m
14:10, SIGCONT
14:55Held, your camera is on35m
15:30SIGTSTP, the camera went off5m
15:35, SIGCONT
16:20SIGTSTP5m
16:25, SIGCONT

18:00

Running: A process doing what it is supposed to be doing.
Still running: The same work, hours later. Nothing in the loop notices the difference.
Seam: SIGTSTP, then SIGCONT. The stack is still there when you get back.
Held: A break came due and was deliberately not fired. This is the feature, not a miss.

Where this sits

We are not the first thing that tells you to take a break.

Here is the honest version, including the parts we lose.

Feature comparison between sigstop, Pomodoro timers, wellness apps and using nothing
	sigstopthis	Pomodoro timersthe 25 minute crowd	Wellness appsstreaks to protect, a subscription	Your current setupnothing
Knows which app you are in	yes	no	sometimes	no
Knows you are on a call and shuts up	yes	no	no	yes
Tells you why it believes that	yes	·not applicable	no	·not applicable
Admits when it does not know	yes	·not applicable	no	·not applicable
Works with zero permissions granted	yes	yes	no	yes
Its only connection is an update check you triggered	yes	sometimes	no	·not applicable
Verifies every update against a key inside the app	yes	sometimes	sometimes	·not applicable
Source you can read and fork	yes	sometimes	no	·not applicable
Free, no account, no tier	yes	sometimes	no	yes
Escalates instead of nagging identically	yes	no	no	no
Runs on Windows and Linux	no	yes	yes	yes
Keeps a streak you can lose	no	no	yes	no
Tracks anything for your manager	no	no	sometimes	no

Feature comparison between sigstop, Pomodoro timers, wellness apps and using nothing
	sigstop	timers	wellness	nothing
Knows which app you are in	yes	no	sometimes	no
Knows you are on a call and shuts up	yes	no	no	yes
Tells you why it believes that	yes	·not applicable	no	·not applicable
Admits when it does not know	yes	·not applicable	no	·not applicable
Works with zero permissions granted	yes	yes	no	yes
Its only connection is an update check you triggered	yes	sometimes	no	·not applicable
Verifies every update against a key inside the app	yes	sometimes	sometimes	·not applicable
Source you can read and fork	yes	sometimes	no	·not applicable
Free, no account, no tier	yes	sometimes	no	yes
Escalates instead of nagging identically	yes	no	no	no
Runs on Windows and Linux	no	yes	yes	yes
Keeps a streak you can lose	no	no	yes	no
Tracks anything for your manager	no	no	sometimes	no

A timer doesn't know you're on a call.

Nothing lands in your Slack huddle.

Call starts

A break comes due

You mute

Call ends

Released

The case it misses, said out loud

It's the same eight hours.

Without

With sigstop

We are not the first thing that tells you to take a break.