Categorification of infinite-dimensional $mathfrak{sl}_2$-modules and braid group 2-actions I: tensor products

This is the first part of a series of two papers aiming to construct a categorification of the braiding on tensor products of Verma modules, and in particular of the Lawrence--Krammer--Bigelow representations. In this part, we categorify all tensor products of Verma modules and integrable modules for quantum $mathfrak{sl_2}$. The categorification is given by derived categories of