adhd-productivity — an ADHD productivity plugin for Claude Code

A Claude Code plugin (skill + hooks + slash commands) that makes Claude work like an ADHD-optimized productivity coach and externalized executive function — for both everyday tasks and coding.

Topics: claude-code · claude-code-plugin · claude · adhd · productivity · focus · executive-function · body-doubling · pomodoro · neurodivergent

It doesn't make Claude "scattered." It teaches Claude the compensatory operating system that actually makes ADHD brains productive: shrink everything to one tiny next action, externalize working memory to a file, manufacture motivation, body-double through the work, make progress visible, and never shame.

One next physical action. Always.

Why this exists

ADHD runs on an interest-based nervous system, not an importance-based one. Motivation comes from INCUP — Interest, Novelty, Challenge, Urgency, Passion (Dr. William Dodson) — not from "this is important." A task with none of those is neurologically hard to start, however trivial it looks. The friction is rarely "not knowing what to do"; it's activation energy, working-memory overload, time blindness, overwhelm, and rejection-sensitive shame.

This plugin turns those insights into how Claude behaves.

Core behaviors

• One next physical action — every reply ends with a single concrete step ("open notes.md, write one bad sentence"), never a to-do list.
• Externalized memory — current task, steps, parked ideas, and progress live in a visible FOCUS.md, so nothing depends on memory (yours or Claude's).
• 2-minute steps — anything bigger than ~5 minutes gets broken down before you start.
• INCUP injection — when a task feels flat, Claude adds urgency (a timer), challenge, novelty, or meaning.
• Body doubling — short timed sprints with gentle check-ins; presence, not supervision.
• Visible progress — ticked steps, counts, and streaks; every completion is celebrated.
• Zero shame — when you stall or spiral, Claude normalizes it, shrinks the task, and restarts gently. No "should", no guilt.
• Capture, don't chase — stray ideas go to a parking lot so the current thread survives.
• Coding mode — smallest runnable/committable step, scaffold the blank file, "make it run then make it right", green tests as dopamine hits.

Install

/plugin marketplace add emircbngl/claude-adhd-productivity
/plugin install adhd-productivity

Then restart Claude Code. (To try it locally before publishing, run /plugin marketplace add with the absolute path to this folder instead of the GitHub slug.)

Forking or rehosting? Update the emircbngl/claude-adhd-productivity slug in .claude-plugin/marketplace.json and .claude-plugin/plugin.json to your own.

Commands

Command	What it does
/focus [task]	Start a focus session: one task → 2-minute steps → timed body-doubling.
/braindump	Empty everything on your mind into the parking lot, then pick the one thing for now.
/next	Restate the single next physical action.
/breakdown [task]	Decompose a task into 2-minute steps.
/done [what]	Mark a step/task done — celebrate, bump the streak, surface the next action.
/checkin	Low-pressure body-double check-in.
/park [idea]	Capture a tangent without derailing.
/unstick	Stuck/overwhelmed/spiraling rescue: normalize → shrink → one tiny action.

The plugin also activates automatically when you sound overwhelmed, stuck, or are staring down a vague/giant task — no command required.

How FOCUS.md works

Claude keeps a short FOCUS.md at the root of your working directory holding your current task, the one next action, your 2-minute steps, a parking lot, your progress/streak, and a resumption point. It's a cache, not a journal — overwritten freely and cleared when a task is done.

In a code repo, add FOCUS.md to your .gitignore — it's personal working state, not project code.

Hooks (always-on scaffolding)

• SessionStart — silently surfaces FOCUS.md so a new session opens with your current next action instead of a blank slate.
• PostCompact — re-reads FOCUS.md after context compaction, so a long session never loses your place.
• Stop — reminds Claude to flush the latest state back to FOCUS.md before ending.

Project layout

adhd-productivity/
├── .claude-plugin/{plugin.json, marketplace.json}
├── skills/adhd-focus/SKILL.md          # the operating doctrine
│   └── references/                     # incup, task-decomposition, coding-mode,
│                                       # anti-shame-rsd, body-doubling, focus-state-format
├── hooks/hooks.json
└── commands/                           # the 8 slash commands above

Credits & sources

The behavior model draws on widely-used ADHD productivity and coaching frameworks: ADDA (time blindness, body doubling), ADDitude (ADHD strengths — hyperfocus, divergent thinking), CHADD / the ADD Resource Center (dopamine, task initiation), Dr. William Dodson's INCUP framework, the Professional Association of ADHD Coaches' core competencies, and practitioner sources on externalizing working memory, the 2-minute rule, and Pomodoro for ADHD.

This is a behavioral coaching tool, not medical advice.

Star history

License

MIT — see LICENSE.