alt Hacker NewsAsk HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)
What are you working on? Any new ideas that you're thinking about?
Comments
Still (in fits and starts) working toward a Bitemporal SQLite based (SaaS, for now) software architecture, because of an obsession with this notion of "Sovereign Software". Any SaaS I build should never lock in customer data, for example.
Current state of work: The implementation of the core data model is wrong. I need to throw it away and redo it from scratch.
Whiplash status: WTF, Time. y u move so fast?
This thread made me---forced me---to accept that it's been well over a year of the agony and ecstasy of solo software construction. Or maybe 2026 is moving way too freaking fast. Or it's good to be obsessive I guess.
https://www.github.com/neuvem/java2graph —- A semantic code graph for AI agents (for Java language)
The goal is to provide AI agents with deep understanding of the codebase and help them understand the context, not just text
A small project but something that I'm happy about: Postgresql backed persistent queues crate for Rust.
I couldn't find any crate that would be ergonomic enough to use and provide features I deem essential, i.e. retryability, scheduling, poison job detection, barriers, backoff strategies etc.
it's an area I'm familiar with so after spending 2 days trying to integrate external libs I decided to roll my own and I'm quite happy how it turned out in 2 days of development.
I plan to open-source it in the near future but right now using it in my another project and it's running quite well.
Synchronous P2P file sharing tool with post-quantum encryption and virtual mount point (https://keibisoft.com/tools/keibidrop.html)
Both peers mount a virtual FUSE folder. Files shared by one side appear in the other's folder in real time. You can open, copy, and browse your peer's files as if they were local. Files go directly between devices over encrypted gRPC. (by default it tries over LAN, then direct IPV6, then uses a data relay).
The hardest part has been making git repos work through the FUSE mount between peers.
(Been developing the tool for 12 months now, very close to a full release)
Worked on some features at open reader, a local-first PDF TTS reader that highlights the words spoken and uses the excellent local kokoro tts engine.
Got fed up with web tech, it's so slow and clunky, so made my own version in python and qt. I changed the design to be based on a doclayout llm, so you can skip or include things like tables and references easily.
It now works so beautifully fast, it's code is readable and simple, no apis or multiple services. Just a qt app, some local llms that can run on a decent cpu and word-leven highlighting and playback selection.
https://github.com/thepycoder/projectwhy-tts
I can listen to papers now!
Been working on something that I use daily, and decided I wanted to see what kind of other ideas I could get out of it, it's very basic article to speech using piper models at the moment.
The part I cared about was being able to send links via one click in my browser or two taps on my phone as I want to read every HN article who's title I find interesting, but don't have the time to read right at that moment.
It then at the moment publishes it to an RSS feed so I subscribe to it in Podcast Addict, but I've also just been using the web app as my reading list and tracker.
Been playing around with different settings on the piper models and different techniques for getting the most out of my four dollar instance:
https://experiments.n0tls.com/
Up next is to work on making the voice better (I'm impressed with the out of the box stuff already), and then making it better at finding the real content on a page and only recording that. It's a problem space I don't know much about, but find fascinating, been fun so far.
I have some blog posts coming out soon. I’m also trying an experiment where I make YouTube videos[0] on each of them. My first video was a huge lift, since it was my first time doing everything.
Random observations from my first one: - presenting my idea visually helped crystallize my thinking in a way that writing doesn’t. And writing was already very good at crystallizing my thinking. - even making a bad video was a lot of work - making a video presentable is a deep subject. Subtle changes were throwing off my setup. Now I understand why so many influencers are fitness and lifestyle; the demand side is obvious, but when you’re already camera-ready you have a huge advantage on the supply side - described something I built felt natural. I do that for a living. The intro was like 45 seconds and took me like 45 minutes to film because it was acting and I don’t know how to do that - learning about video editing features had an immediate payoff because video is so long
[0] I’m posting the videos at https://m.youtube.com/@bitlog-dev . I said if the first one got to 100 I’d commit to making at least 10, and I just crossed that threshold
Back in the day, my friends and I loved to rip a few games of Curve Fever 2. The original is gone and the game that took its place has objectionable aesthetic and gameplay tweaks.I've been working on making my dream "curve-like" game that captures the elegance of the original's gameplay while also allowing optional stuff like portals, rocket launchers, custom maps and modes like capture-the-flag. I'm kind of going for that sense of hilarity and semi-competitiveness of e.g. Halo 3 custom maps and modes.
My friends and I have been having a great time playing the initial version, and it's been fun working on some of the more interesting technical aspects like server + browser performance, mapping 2-d game space onto a 3-D visual space, etc. as well as some just-because-I-want to things like a dynamic music system.
Working on tooling to help make working with agents in parallel easier, with minimal tools/no deps - https://github.com/andrewhathaway/ag.sh I don’t want to manually manage worktrees, tmux sessions, branches but want to remain in the terminal.
Also recently built a home energy cost/consumption display for the TRMNL - https://andrewhathaway.net/blog/ambient-cost-display-for-oct...
I am working on [1] a modernized open (AGPL) stack for interactive tutoring systems. SRS++, with hooks for defining your own pedagogical protocols over knowledge dependency graphs, Elo rating systems, etc, and with an eye toward gracefully differentiable curriculum that can hill-climb in terms of its efficacy.
With this stack, I'm scaffolding several (fingers crossed) commercial learning SaaS products. The first [2] is LettersPractice - a minimalist early literacy app that's family-first, in so far as it presumes an adult supervisor who co-learns strong confidence as a phonetic coach both at and away from the app. Putting considered rails on the parent-child reading experience.
The second set of apps is in music, with some experimental dev right now against piano (via midi devices), flute [3], aural skills, and sightsinging.
[1] https://github.com/patched-network/vue-skuilder , https://patched.network/skuilder
I'm trying to get back to verifying some of my old fun ideas. I want to finally build my 3D QR cube (https://deriese.net/qrcubes.html?s=hn) by sending a design to a laser shop, and I also want to find someone with a few termocouples to verify my results to the coffee cup cooling problem (https://deriese.net/coffee.html?s=hn). If anyone wants to help, feel free to send me a message.
https://openscout.app - a local first communication tool, for agent to agent communication and user to agent communication too
https://sauna-assistant.com - Sauna master in your pocket
My wife has wanted a security system for a while. The turnkey cloud solutions freak me out. I've done some home automation with home aisstant before, and omg that was configuration slog. But with Claude..... It becomes fun.
A cyberpunk 2077 inspired Tower Defence game https://github.com/XEonAX/TowerPunk-CyberDefence
I had already developed a tower defence game without AI long time back.
Wanted to try my hand at guided vibe engineering and see how faster was it.
I built an AI that turns YouTube videos into interactive tutoring sessions
Paste a link → AI breaks it into sections → teaches you on a whiteboard with voice → quiz + flashcards at the end.
It's free to try while in beta: https://www.pandio.online
A native application (Windows, Linux, MacOS) for music transcription.
It comes with time stretch and pitch shift as most of these softwares do, but it allows you to save loop regions and take notes. It's designed to be a practice session tool.
I'm doing it from first principles, and having fun writing GPU code, platform shims, and squeeze every ms I can to make it fast and smooth.
I will be looking for testers soon. If anybody is interested, hit me up.
WASM- & V8 isolate-based operating system that's (almost) POSIX-compliant, including its own network stack, VFS, process tree, etc.
Allows you to compile most C or Rust programs to run in it without modification. Also can run Claude Code, Codex, Pi, and OpenCode unmodified.
Working on polishing, security, and documentation so I can share an in-depth deep dive on HN.
Hi HN,
I’m working on OurCodeLab, a Singapore-based startup. After 11+ years in DevSecOps, I noticed a lot of local SMEs are either overpaying for simple sites or using insecure, bloated templates.
I’m trying to solve this by building high-quality, lightweight landing pages at the most affordable rate possible. Right now, I’m running a promotion: we’ll build your landing page (up to 2 pages) for free if we handle your domain hosting.
I craft each site individually to ensure they meet modern web and cyber standards—no copy-paste layouts. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the model or any feedback on the tech stack.
If you're an SME or know one that needs a hand, reach out at [email protected] for a non-obligatory chat.
LLM has made scripts incredibly cheap, and their lifecycles as short as one-off. Batch rename? "Please implement a Python script." Remove background from images? "Please implement a Python script." Or various operations that could be described in a few sentences but used to take a lot of time—"help me implement a script..." With development time nearly zero, creating a new file, running a script, then deleting the script becomes the most time-consuming part, which feels very clunky. So I wrote RunOnce—targeted at this kind of one-off script scenario. It registers in Windows 11's right-click menu; click "Run Code Here" and a minimal editor appears. Paste your code (or generate it inside), run—automatic language detection, file cleanup, etc., much smoother :) Written in WinUI3, follows Windows 11 Mica guidelines, distributed on the Microsoft Store: https://github.com/Water-Run/RunOnce
I built a cmux-like sidebar for a fork of wezterm, called wezmux https://github.com/vcabeli/wezmux
If you know, you know. I wanted to like cmux but I had tons of problem with fonts or scrolling behaviors and I don't need a web browser in my terminal, so I went back to wezterm and added the nice sidebar for my claude code / codex notifications and output previews.
I built my own fun t-shirt brand called devopsicorn, no AI used here, I worked with a graphics designer from Spain: https://devopsicorn.com
Fun project playing around with print in demand and Etsy. Now wondering why Etsy became so popular while being tricky and inflexible to use for the seller :-)
a 90's Art Style (think Street Fighter 2) - Surf Forecast App.
I wanted a surf forecast app that i can look at glance, which "time-slot" of the week is good enough to go surf.
And I wanted it to look like nothing else out there, at least surf forecast wise
Git worktrees are awesome but they broke my workflow in a couple ways:
Resuming work. I used to `j <reponame>` then `gco <branchname>`. Now if I do that I get an error about the branch being checked out already in another worktree. I realized the branch names are pretty unique across repos so I made ` jbr <branchname>` that works from anywhere.
Jumping within repo. The other kink was when I wanted to focus on a particular package I’d do `j <subdir>` and it would usually be unique enough to jump to the one in my current checkout. But now I have dozens of concurrent checkouts and have to pick, even though I’m already in the repo. So `jd <subdir>` does like autojump or zoxide but only within the current checkout.
To power those shell functions I made a “where” extension for Git.
https://github.com/turadg/git-where
It’s working out nicely!
Making rent as an open source developer.
Shamelessly trying to attract new monthly sponsors and people willing to buy me the occasional pizza with my crap HTML skills.
I'm working on my Open Source speaking clock (mostly for myself):
https://github.com/jcubic/speaking-clock
It uses local AI models for the voice.
As a means to learn about both WebAssembly and Rust, I started writing a WebAssembly binary decoder (i.e. a parser for `.wasm` files) from scratch.
Recently it hit v3 spec conformance. (I'm executing the upstream spec test suite.)
I don't plan to make it a highly-performant decoder for use in production environments, but rather one that can be used for educational purposes, easy to read and/or debugging issues with modules. That's why I decided not to offer a streaming API, and why I'll be focusing on things like good errors, good code docs etc.
P.S. I'm new to the language so any feedback is more than welcome.
Just recently launched my suite of media inspection and encoding tools based on FFmpeg.
Still iterating through refinement and features. It's built on Rust + Tauri with a React frontend, in case anyone is curious.
I've created various open-source and commercial tools in the multimedia space over the last 10+ years and wanted to put it all together into something more premium.
I’m getting ready for the first release of a story time app my wife and I have been using for reading to our son.
The scope creeped to book discovery and ebook reading with OpenLibrary from just tracking and personal library recommendations.
But we have been able to incorporate new books into the story time rotation so I’m convinced it’s worth it.
It’s definitely been fun experiencing the range of quality for kids books in the internet archive.
I’m aiming for a May 1.0 release on iOS and Android.
Working on Kernel, a GSAT vocab study app for Taiwanese students. A lot of exam prep still means paying cram schools for structure and linear repetition. We’re trying to turn that structure into software that knows what you’re about to forget and what to review next.
app store: https://apps.apple.com/tw/app/kernel-%E8%83%8C%E5%96%AE%E5%A...
viral launch post that brought in ~1700 users in 2 days: https://www.threads.com/@sean_hsu_13/post/DW8nBzDjV8T?xmt=AQ...
Working on implementing the web both auth standard and a take on federated and out-of-band agent bot validation.
I am building devlens.io, an open source tool for codebase visualization tool for easy onboarding and easy PR review. The most interesting and loved feature of the tool is blast radius i.e., If I change this component, how far will the effect be propogated ?
github repo if you wanna check : https://github.com/devlensio/devlensOSS website : https://devlens.io
I have been working on two opensource tools:
https://dhuan.github.io/mock/latest/examples.html
^Command line utility that lets you build APIs with just one command.
^JSON/YAML manipulation with AWK style approach.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/t76-org/dr-pd
Dr. PD is an open-source USB-C Power Delivery analyzer and programmable sink. It can sit inline between a USB-PD source and sink to show you the communication between them, or connect directly to a source and emulate a sink so you can characterize chargers and power supplies.
The goal of the project is to make serious USB-PD analysis more accessible. The hardware, firmware, and host software are all open source. The control software runs locally in Chrome or Edge with no drivers or installation required, and the platform also provides Python, JavaScript, SCPI, and USBTMC interfaces for automation.
(Sorry that I don't have a link to the GH repo yet, but you can follow the project on https://hackaday.io/project/205495-dr-pd. Also, if you read this far, I'm looking for a few beta testers. Reach out if you're interested!)
Working on Fronteer, a project management app that (1) integrates messaging more cohesively with tasks and (2) better supports external collaborators - think agency clients, customers, etc.
Some of the biggest pain points we’ve seen is chat being separate from a solid task manager, and the pain of collaborating with people outside your own org.
We’re currently in private beta and hope to open it up to the general public soon!
I’m working on my own markdown IDE / Google Docs competitor with an AI agentic editor that coaches on strategy in addition to proof reading. I made it as a side project. Designed it entirely by taking screenshots, annotating them, and giving feedback to codex. Basically applied everything I learned utilizing Claude code a d codex extensively at work to this side project to see how fast I could ship something that felt complete. Check it out: https://clarus.page
Built/building godom, a framework that lets me build local apps in Go, with the browser serving as a dumb view layer. I don't hate JavaScript or React, but my primary motivation was to eliminate NPM as much as possible. https://github.com/anupshinde/godom I used AI to create the first POC, and once it was proven, it was improved, and AI handled a lot of grunt work where it could. The framework was built primarily to solve my pain points
And building Fractiz.com, a customizable pre-coded backtests platform.
I am building ExamineIP - Free network security toolkit
Collection of 15 diagnostic tools (VPN leak test, DNS checker, port scanner, etc.) built after a WiFi security incident. All client-side, no data collection.
Feedback welcome!
https://tessellate-digital.github.io/notion-agent-hive/
I'm not a fan of the TUI form factor for longer running, more ambitious features. Even with a classic "Add an endpoint, tweak the infra, consume in the frontend", plans get awkward to refine in markdown files, especially if everything lives in its own repo.
I wanted something like Plannotator, that could also work for the execution, not just the planning, So I've been working on something that turns Notion into the memory and orchestration layer for agents.
Underneath, it's a plan-implement-review loop, but you get a nice Notion page with a kanban board out of it. You can easily link your existing documentation, collaborate by sharing the page, annotate and comment to steer the planner, and you get versioning out of the box.
Because Notion acts as the memory, you can just open the page after a long weekend and get your agent and yourself back into the full context. You can see what's been done, what's left, or what requires human input just by looking at the board. You can ask it to fetch the comments on the pull request you raised, and it'll fetch, validate the comments, give you a report, and update the plan/board if necessary.
I've been using it exclusively for the last two weeks, I'm quite happy with it. It's been really fun to build the exact tool I wanted.
I helped co-host a popup village in rural South Korea last week. Mix of co-working, co-living and local activities like trail running and bird watching.
Post-event feedback showed everyone loved it. But personally I think we could have done better organizing on the co-working side so people has a more predictable schedule to lock-in.
So I’m planning what the next iteration of this event could look like if the co-working aspect was stronger. Especially in the area of everyone sharing their personal and/or professional intentions with each other. So they're more likely to accomplish those intentions with the help of other participants.
Creating interactive pivot tables from large relational tables.
Many people know that a handy data analysis feature in Excel is to create a pivot table from a spreadsheet. But spreadsheets are limited to just a million rows. You can get around this limit by jumping through a bunch of hoops.
My system lets you easily create tables with thousands of columns and hundreds of millions of rows. (Just drop a CSV, Json, or other file on a window to create a table.)
Now you can create a pivot table from it with just a few clicks of the mouse. It is fast (I created a pivot table against an 8.5 million row table of Chicago crime data in less than a second.)
The resulting pivot table is interactive. Each cell (row/column intersection) has all the row keys mapped to it. Double-click on any cell and it will instantly show you all the rows in the original table that were used to calculate the cell. You can then analyze those rows further.
It also works well against much larger tables. I have tested it out against 25M, 50M, 100M, and 200M+ row tables.
I am working on making grocery online shopping less overwhelming and more like a rolling list, you keep adding items as you see them (missing) in your household and it silently records it at the backend. When you are ready to pick up order, you push to qfc cart via api (a button) and boom your grocery shopping is done. No need of making lists and then one by one putting them on the cart. It works with any QFC or Kroger store because to my disbelieve they actually have an open sku and cart api. Grateful to Kroger to be tech forward. Free to use , here is the link https://www.ddisco.com/sonic/customer My wife is hooked on it as she had to take time in the week to sit down ask me what to order and then build the cart. Now it’s like just typing in what you need.
Next I am making the version for folks who do not make a list and just go with past orders , for them I am automating so the cart is made based on past orders like milk usually is ordered every 2 weeks.
For the past 4 years I've been building a programming language reimagined specifically for games. It has automatic multiplayer, but also things like state, components, concurrent behaviours and reactive user interfaces baked into the language.
Trying out games posted to HN so i can add them to https://hn-games.marcolabarile.me/
Testing out some ideas to automate data entry workflows from an italian powerlifting federation (FIPL) to OPL https://www.openpowerlifting.org/
I’ve just released v2.0 of Kintoun (https://kintoun.app), an iOS client for Cloudflare that I’ve been building for quite a while now.
Greetings from Munich. I’m building Joy, a CLI for product management. Your backlog is plain text in your git repo. joy add "fix the login bug", done. AI works through the same workflow as humans: identities, capabilities, cost budgets, every action in the git log. Still early. I use Joy to build Joy. Joy docs: https://joyint.com/en/joy/docs Ecosystem and trust model: https://joyint.com/en/docs/architecture Feedback welcome.
Too many things
- Tool to auto create dashboards from csv/json files or rest api ( https://EasyAnalytica.com )
- Tool to preview, annotate and share html snippets ( https://easyanalytica.com/tools/html-playground/ )
- Creating agent to edit files with smaller model(<1B) not yet released.
-Prompt assember to create prompts/templates/context and easily share between ai to be released this week.
I'm researching Luddite-style examples from around the world. That is, examples of when people rebel against new technology that they see as harming their livelihoods.
To prevent a big wall of text, duplicate of [1] (similar, but non-AI focused), I'll just say my wife and I are still working on Uruky, a EU-based and simpler Kagi alternative [2], and that's going really well so far!
On that first link you can find a lot of answers to frequently asked questions.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47700880
[2]: https://uruky.com