The Problem
Every context switch costs you
Developers rely on music to maintain focus during deep work. But controlling Spotify means leaving the editor, switching between windows and/or tabs and after that trying to find your way back into the problem you are solving. Research suggests that it can take up to 23 minutes to fully gain concentration after an interruption.
For something as trivial as skipping a track, that is an enormous hidden cost
The Solution
Play Spotify is a lightweight VS Code extension that integrates directly with Spotify Web API via OAuth 2.0. It surfaces music controls through VS Code's command palette and status bar, the two places developers already look. Key interactions were designed to require zero movement. Play, pause, skip, all accessible with a keyboard command or a single glance at the status bar. The extension used token refresh silently in the background so authentication never interrupts the session. State is persisted across workspace reloads
The Outcome
Play Spotify solves a real, personal pain point and became a practical demonstration of building tooling with UX-first mindset.