alt Hacker NewsAsk HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)
What are you working on? What have you been curious about lately?
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I'm going whole-hog on LLM-driven development to build out an old-school FOSS forum that can run in resource-constrained environments with a minimum of fuss. Think phpBB but written in Rust with modern UI niceties and a SQLite backend. My hope is that interested parties will be able to deploy this on random SBCs or Unikraft and use cloudflared to expose their service to interested parties. Watching old forums that I used to frequent get gobbled up by VerticalScope makes me pine for the days of small self-hosted communities that existed for the hell of it instead of monetized interaction.
Typegres - SQL over RPC safely (safely compose queries over Cap'n Web):
At a high level: 1. Define your schema: TS classes model each one of your underlying tables. 2. Encapsulate your schema: Add methods on those classes (encapsulation 101 applied to your database) -- that compile down to SQL. This gives you the equivalent of computed columns and first-class relations 3. Expose your API: explicitly mark members of your classes to expose 4. Use it: Now - and this is the crazy part - the client (e.g., a web browser) can use your data-model directly to query data with SQL-level power (joins, aggregations, etc -- compiling into a single query) over RPC, securely!
Real example visuals are better at describing it: https://typegres.com/
Recently added SQLite support and live queries; playground shows the live queries: https://typegres.com/play/
Launched a suite of media inspection and encoding tools a few months ago, based on FFmpeg. Slowly getting more customers.
Constantly 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 with an IDE-like experience.
Most recently I added a /playground area to experiment with the inspection tools via a WASM build, which I thought was a neat way for users to try the app before downloading the full version.
Happy to answer any questions!
As usual, I’m chipping away at my highbrow app for readers and writers. It’s an authoritative dictionary, a reverse dictionary, a spaced repetition system for vocabulary building, an e-book reader, and now a portal to Wikipedia.
I dare say it’s one of the most polished PWAs in existence, especially on iOS. Nevertheless, I’m experimenting with a Capacitor build, because most customers and visitors use the app on iPhone, but few are aware of Safari’s “Add to Home Screen” feature, so they miss out on the optimal UX. Also, the app could use the exposure and user trust of the App Store, as well as flourishes (pun intended) that Apple does not extend to PWAs, like haptics and a Liquid Glass icon.
Still working away on a completely offline meeting document generator that works on generic laptops with no GPU (https://whistle-enterprise.com). A new release coming very soon focusing on getting clearer audio which in turn makes the transcription and end document generated more accurate.
Inbetween that I've been working on a "software house" (don't know how else to describe it). Pretty much codex/claude running on a VPS with a web interface and the ability to actually build and publish software / webapps etc.
It came from me sitting on the train on the way home and I had an idea pop into my head for a pebble watch app, I wanted to build it and test it there and then as I still had about 45 mins left. I know you can run codex against git repos in the cloud but I didn't want to faff with that (and last I remember the allowances for this were much less generous). It's been really fun, probably many things like this out there but it works exactly how I want it to. I plan to open source it once I've tidied things up a bit more.
Working on reversing climate change. Carbon dioxide removal.
Also getting curious about mechanisms to prevent damage from high temperatures in the short term. There's a project over the Great Barrier Reef I've been digging into what mechanisms they're using: https://barrierreef.org/news/explainers/what-is-cloud-bright...
I was actually facing a huge friction problem when it came to closing clients—both at my agency and in a wholesale business I run with my family—because the whole quoting and payment process was really outdated. So, I built a software tool to eliminate that friction; it’s like a live Notion-style interface where the salesperson and client can update the quote and communicate via a public link. That same link allows for approval and payment—using cards or bank transfers, obviously via the Stripe API—and handles everything related to invoicing and sales. It ended up being really useful for my agency, too, allowing me to send clients more professional quotes with a detailed project breakdown so they can clearly see what the work entails and understand the pricing. Honestly, I’ve definitely noticed an improvement in sales.
An agent harness that is kind of like airflow for agent tasks.
I thought open claw was cool but could never use something so insecure.
Each run is in a container. One network bridge out so everything from tool calls to model communication goes over the bridge.
Each run has a capability token and the host checks grants for the tools attempting to be called.
Core super thin and everything from credentials handling to model communication is a package.
Finally got it alpha and have some useful jobs set up like it triggering jobs on an alert channel in slack. Debugging it with tools like GitHub kube and our work mcp and the dropping a comment on every alert with the cause.
Still closed source but hoping to change that after some more testing.
Working on https://letterspractice.com
This is a high efficiency, narrowly-scoped, low screen-time early literacy app for families with kids aged 2+.
A lightweight ,portable virtual machine that simplifies/replaces need for containers.
https://www.play-when.com/daily
When? Is a timeline game I've been working on for a bit. It's a board game I love playing with my family and I wanted a slicker mobile version I could play with them.
I have high myopia that is progressively getting worse so started working on building an app development platform for my Kobo eReader so that I can live without my mac and phone. https://github.com/BandarLabs/Cobalt
Have built the SDK and some apps like an HN Client, ChatGPT client, Claude Code permissions sidekick, RSS Reader, some games etc. (all in the same above repo)
It has 8x less powerful hardware than a modern raspberry pi but runs Linux with an eink display, wifi bluetooth and a good battery life for $100 or something.
I'm working on writing up pages for projecthammer.org, the new website where I'll host my database of Canadian grocery prices. It's getting interest from more academics and needs a more formal home.
I've been curious about ways in which politicians who are in the minority/out of power can still make progress on issues that matter to them.
A new spec, TPX, which is meant to enable building SaaS where the user brings their own inference:
It has a few potentially interesting side effects:
- enterprises can plug their preferred LLM into the SaaS they use.
- self hosters can extend their rigs into the web.
- simple SaaS products can offer LLM integrations without their entire pricing model being upended by LLM hosting and infrastructure.
- we can all live like Ender in Xenocide and have a personal AI that has context on everything we are doing.
- have a no op provider for people who are anti llm.
Solo founder (and sole employee) getting to 2M ARR with Zigpoll[0]
AI is making it possible to go after bigger clients so the strategy is to focus on marketing and going upmarket. A lot of new features to add and things to learn as you move up to bigger customers with larger contracts!
A programming language that makes your game multiplayer automatically! It integrates rollback netcode into the programming language itself, guaranteeing that whatever you code is deterministic and can be snapshotted and rolled back. Then it integrates the networking and server automatically so you can just code your game like a singleplayer game and it'll be multiplayer automatically! I've been working on this for four years now.
Succinct data structures. Finished the indexable bit vector, with nanosecond rank/select operations. Working on the range min max tree based balanced parentheses succinct tree structure, with support for the usual tree navigation and operations.
I'm writing an add-on for the NVDA screen reader to allow users of Jaws to "seamlessly" migrate to it. Also a financial tool that answers “how much money can I actually spend?” by forecasting your cash balance through upcoming bills, cards, income, and transfers. (I'd love to turn this into a product, but I think the market is full as it is.) I also just completed a bare-bones web-to-mumble system because the app for the iPhone is...lacking. https://github.com/bmmcginty/wumble (To be clear, "I" is AI with human testing and reading over the code.)
I’m working on ProofLeague, an app for keeping workout promises with friends:
https://proofleague.com (iOS, web app and android)
You create a private league, set a weekly goal (workout 3x a week), and tap Start when you begin a workout. Friends get notified and then have 30 minutes to ask for a selfie. If nobody asks, the workout counts automatically. There’s no public feed or strangers involved, just a small group keeping each other honest.
My friends and I had been doing a version of this via text message for years, but this app has been great. I am in 4 "leagues", all of them get notified at once and then I only share my selfie once and it automatically goes to any group that asks. It's motivating and hilarious to see people working out.
It's free and would love for you guys to try it and set up a league with friends or family. Please send me any feedback at [email protected]
Climbing gym photogrammetry. My idea is that route and climb recordings is best recorded against a 3D climbing gym model, rather than a plan video, and technology has gotten good enough to do with a regular phone.
As a climber myself, to climb effectively, one has to review their own climb, and with other people. 4D video, body positions across time, is very helpful in improving climbing. I managed to get a reasonable result (far from good) from one video, rather requiring multiple camera angles.
Haven't gotten to monetization yet, but I am enjoying every moment of making it.
A read only preview at https://kmcheung12.github.io/climb-preview/w/ae43c6e5
I am building Bloomberry, an alternative to tools like Builtwith for finding companies that use a specific enterprise tech, as soon as we detect them
Most tools just focus on frontend tech like Shopify or Wordpress. Bloomberry shows you who uses backend tools like Hubspot, or Workday, or Gitlab for example.
Example: https://bloomberry.com/data/github-enterprise - companies that use Github
Working on https://radius.to/ - a Meetup.com alternative of sorts - with fairer organiser pricing for smaller groups.
I posted a Show HN [1] here a while back, got tons of great feedback, and have been slowly improving it since, with no real marketing. Another Show HN is probably (definitely) overdue!
Current focus is shipping a "Meet people doing X" feature - i.e. "I'm going for a cycle today in Richmond Park - who wants to join" (independent from groups) so I'm excited for that. There are some UI examples of how that will look on the landing page.
I am working on cataloguing Murder Stones!
These were stone memorials placed where someone was killed, especially in the UK. Most of them are 18th-19th century. Some are lost.
After watching a YouTube video about it and finding there was no definitive list, I registered https://murder-stones.org on Friday night and fired up claude code. There is very little on Wikipedia. I'm collating all the snippets i can find. There are a bunch of references I have collected which I'm sorting through with claude which has now run out of credits!
I have been more focused on finding new stones than fleshing out the stories so far. I have a pile of sources.
I have been researching manually for tidbits and feeding them to claude and asking what else it can find. It could find 8 to begin with but my research has got me up to around 33. There are some artifacts of that process still on the site... but it's day 2.
Its still a bit janky, but it's only day 2 really. Stack is a csv file of maybes, being sorted into sqlite, generating a static site with a python script, push to github, host on netlify. I also have a quick local flask app to enable me to hand edit the db and force a rebuild
I would love to hear about any leads!
I built macrosforhumans.com because I had been using cronometer since 2020 on and off and was familiar with tracking macros but always hated the entry. Measurement is something that you have to do regardless but the annoyance of having to suffer through their search/recipe/diary CRUD UI was unbearable. With MFH there is no mobile or web app. it's just a phone number that you text. This reduced the friction for me significantly and I've already lost a few pounds and, after recently turning 30, hopefully a few more with more diet and exercise.
I've been building this for a while but I'm working on getting my first 100 users now which is my first foray into the marketing/sales side of things and any tips would be helpful. Also I didn't realize until later that the name, while I think is pretty cool, might be extremely poor SEO? :-)
I also think that these kinds of post-app apps are a curious idea and will become more popular, although likely (hopefully not) through sms as the communication medium. I am off this week and plan to write some stuff about it but it feels really cool to remove the terrible CRUD UIs entirely from this part of my life. I tell my friends that even if it doesn't take off I'm never shutting it down because I enjoy using it over myfitnesspal/cronometer/macrofactor etc so much.
I'm still working on https://openaltfinder.com; a directory to help people discover open-source projects. Added quite a bit of new features over the last month, including a new weekly newsletter, and a way for people to find beginner friendly issues: https://openaltfinder.com/contribute
It's been tough, for some reason both Google and Bing completely erased my site from their indexes.
Another thing I'm working on: https://getpinnd.com - A small social network for map makers.
I love shared daily puzzle games. Wordle, crosswords, that kind of thing.
Swudoku is my take on a daily sudoku puzzle. All the numbers are on the board, you just need to rearrange them to complete the game.
Been running it for over a year now with daily plays from friends and family who enjoy it. Recently took a stab at an iPhone app for it as well.
I’m making Stacks, an open source ebook manager and server, as a lightweight alternative to Calibre.
Written in Swift, it consists of a SwiftUI browser and a Mac/Linux server and CLI. Shares are automatically discovered via Bonjour/avahi and also published as OPDS feeds.
It can import Calibre libraries and has basic support for managing books on Kindles, but I’ve only tested it with a MTP Paperwhite as that’s all I’ve got.
I got laid off recently and finally decided to dedicate some time to learn Rust, I started to work on an an idea I've head for a while, to create a game server to play Thai chess inspired by lichess.org, in fact, I plan to use several of their assets.
I'll use Rust for the backend even though it's probably an over kill, but it's the best way to learn for me, doing something with the language. I have some of the front end move logic and board done, I plan to start working on the API soon, after I finish a Rust book I'm reading. Here's some of the code if anybody is interested: https://github.com/thaichess-org.
I used to teach C to students many years ago, and with agents it's becoming a niche craft. C is still both an important and fun language to use, and I've been very slowly making a C language course to let beginners learn a bit about the language and practice writing simple code with no AI: https://c-course.com
A work in progress, and will stay so for much longer, I guess.
Mu - Tools for Agents. An MCP server and web app that provides real time access to news, markets, weather, video, places, search, etc. It's sort of extension of a previous idea I had to put all the key tools and services behind a single api and access token. I don't know that it's quite there yet. The idea might change. Still looking for feedback.
https://micro.mu https://github.com/micro/mu
Also have an agent harness and service framework in Go
I'm working on a family organizer app Mana - The AI-Connected Home App for Households & Trusted Circles https://share.google/dCKfODeN7c1QhHhft
I have a keyboard I bought in 2020 called the Makerdiary M60 keyboard. It runs Python, and over the years I've coded in various functions. But it was somewhat buggy, and the upstream firmware was never upgraded.
I love the hardware because it's the only keyboard I've been able to find that keeps a live Bluetooth connection and lets you toggle back and forth between USB and Bluetooth instantly. It lets you use two computers, and switch back and forth as fast as you can type. Years ago I added a feature that changes the backlight color based on the active connection, so you can instantly tell which computer your typing will go to.
Lately I've spent weeks using an LLM to bring the keyboard up to the latest firmware of its components (e.g., Circuitpython) and implementing all of my dream keyboard features that I never had the gumption to spend hours implementing pre-LLM. I finally resolved years-old bugs, and I added things like layer-based backlighting (so that the individual keys with relevant functions are lit), a better battery gauge, better sleep/suspend timing, backlight calibration, better debounce, and so on.
I've also upgraded the hardware and added batteries to each of the keyboards (I have three of these, one at home, one in the office, and one for travel).
It's been a very satisfying project, finally scratching a years-old itch.
I am working on a CLI tool that will build a static web page for a small brick and mortar store. The software is FOSS and could be useful for the small store that has a lot of foot traffic, but is under served by many of the big tech offerings. The idea is that foot traffic can be increased by using a QR code placed on a banner outside the store directing them to the website that can display sales and types of items that the store offers. Pleases check out the build log for details of my progress.
I'm building a program that should help golf courses and golf course architects design better courses. I've been writing about it on my blog. My goal is to start a golf architecture consulting company, and help design/redesign courses that are better.
The general thesis on identifying architecturally interesting areas on the golf course: https://golfcoursewiki.substack.com/p/i-spent-the-last-month...
Identifying dynamic golf design so you get more interesting play on the same course: https://golfcoursewiki.substack.com/p/friday-pins-vs-sunday-...
Measuring the addition and removal of hazards and how it dynamically affects different skill levels, and how to measure that: https://golfcoursewiki.substack.com/p/measure-2000-times-cut...
How I created a golf dispersion pattern generator -- which I made open source -- so that it can be improved, because the golf analytic companies already have the data and almost certainly won't share it: https://golfcoursewiki.substack.com/p/how-to-bake-a-dispersi...
I am building Hiring Method (https://hiring-method.com) – an AI-native, math-driven recruitment platform. It extracts structured scorecards from both CVs and job requirements and mathematically matches them, so you can actually review the exact reasoning behind why a candidate scored a, say, 85%. This fitness value is specified at every interview step – as applicant goes through an interview process their scorecard is updated at all steps.
I did the first Show HN a few days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49083987) but it was sadly left without attention.
I lead development on Pindigo (https://pindigo.app), a social score-tracking and ranking app for pinball players.
Most of my time lately has gone into Flippd, its successor, which we recently soft-launched. We’ve also released a tech demo that uses custom computer-vision models to identify a pinball machine from a photo and extract the player’s score.
You can try it here: https://flippd.gg/scan
It’s not as cool as most of the other projects, but I have a little app (Ato on AppStore - https://apps.apple.com/app/ato/id6757285141) for basically tracking all walks/bike rides I’ve ever been and visualize it on a single map. I’ve had the app for a couple of years, but redid it with “hexes”, instead of just routes. It has a bit of coop, competition and ranking feeling to it nowadays as well.
I started the original project as an excuse to learn SwiftUI, then been using it as an excuse to test all the frontier models and etc. to see how much better we’re getting at AI-coding. Kinda fun to see a couple dozen weekly users semi-competing with each other. Obviously nothing big, but the feeling you get seeing someone else use your app is very nice.
I built and run several SaaS platforms: - https://dave-bot.com -> a full-stack AI platform where you can generate videos, images, music, code, 3d objects with frontier Gen AI models.
- https://headsnap.io -> a platform that you can generate images of yourself based on 4 selfies.
- https://quantiq.live -> a service providing financial and historical data for stocks, as well as government trades.
- https://aivestor.tech -> an AI agent that picks small/midcap stocks and trades them using Alpaca API. It uses Reddit, news, polymarket, Google Trends and many other data sources to take investment decisions.
- @Polyglot_lingua_bot -> a voice-enabled Telegram-based bot that can help you learn new languages.
- https://select.supply -> a directory of carefully-curated and well-crafted products.
All of those allowed me to quit my day job and live a comfortable and flexible life. I still invest time in maintenance and adding new features, but I love coding, marketing and everything that comes with promoting and selling a SaaS (and I also have a serious addiction for Stripe notifications).
On top of that, I developed my own software agency where I help clients build and scale software (https://bitheap.ch).
smol, a smol agent harness in 9 lines python
also has minimal implementations in clojure, go, php:
https://github.com/smol-env/smol
cheaper, faster, less peak RAM per task than OpenCode, Hermes, Codex, pi:
https://smolenv.com/t/nested-template-includes-60636/
https://smolenv.com/t/duckdb-sessionization-23811/
exploring what the minimal setup is for an agent to work well
I have been working on a static site generator. I've used Hugo and Jekyll before but everytime there is something you have to learn or get used to and they never map 1 to 1 to the flat structure of a simple blog for example.
It's a few classes of C# right now that parses a folder and auto generates the navigation, links, titles and summary off of the folder/file structure for the 1st level and then subsequent depth is mapped to individual items in the list view not on the nav bar (although I did that too, it looked weird with higher depth). So if you have a folder with 3 files and 2 additional folder you get 5 links in the nav bar, 3 content pages and 2 list pages. No other setup is needed. No llm written code, but I used deepseek v4 flash to ask various questions and get samples of some things.
I forgot just how much depth there is to exploring a simple problem. Loving it!
Just a little personal tool: Shipment tracking I call Lighthouse:
- All our shipments in one UI (instead of searching trough our mail boxes or going to several merchant apps/sites)
- LLM processes update emails, but everything can be manually adjusted (or created from scratch)
- We have a bunch of destinations we order to (work, home, different pick-up spots), this lets me see where I have to pick up and with which pick-up code
- Real-time sync in case we update something, the other person sees it immediately
- PWA, with animations, feels as good as native on mobile
- $0 running cost (I only paid for AI sub when vibing this)
Desktop: https://imgur.com/a/HD9mCIr Mobile: https://imgur.com/a/EAuJiqH
I've been resuming work on a Zig library for developing N64 homebrew¹. Previous milestone was getting a framebuffer onto the screen, and after achieving that I took an overly-long break.
Current goal, which I've been working on for a bit more than a week now, is to add support for controlling the RDP (the part of the N64's GPU that actually does all the rasterization), such that programs can actually draw triangles. I'd already implemented the control registers, so the current work is defining all the RDP commands, along with documenting what they do and how to use them — which means that I need to fully understand what they do and how to use them, and that's been a fun rabbit hole to explore.
I'm currently about halfway to two-thirds of the way through defining packed structs for all the RDP commands, then the plan is to build a CommandList struct with methods to build RDP command lists and validate that they make sense (make sure all the triangle/rectangle rendering commands have all their subcommands in the right order, make sure you ain't calling them without there being a framebuffer defined as the rendering target, make sure the needed synchronization commands are in place where needed, etc.). Then that should hopefully be enough for Zig64 to draw its first triangle :)
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I'm working on a platform that aggregates a business's operational and financial data and builds a causal model on top, deriving target metrics like FCF or EBITDA. With that model we can forecast different scenarios — what happens if we open a new shop, raise prices, take a loan. We also generate reports: weekly overviews, anomaly detection, deviations from targets. All of this is essentially a harness for an AI agent that customizes the platform for a specific business and integrates its data sources. Large companies have dedicated teams and sophisticated tooling for this; my bet is that small and medium businesses would benefit just as much, and with recent progress in AI it's finally possible to deliver it tailored to each case at very low cost.
My primary target right now is e-commerce due to rich data streams, however if you think your business would benefit from this tool, I would be happy to connect and discuss it.
I've been working on shard balancing for Playwright Test. The idea is to use the new API released in Playwright v1.62 together with historical test durations to balance tests across shards.
I ended up designing a specialized variant of LPT that works well for Playwright test suites. It's now used in WordPress's Gutenberg project, where it cut test runtime from 35 minutes to 23.
The algorithm is called SALT. Here's the detailed write-up if you're interested in job scheduling:
A diffusion-based UI design tool I left Figma to build.
My core hypothesis is that LLMs are trained to write consistent code (good for a billing function), but they also express design through code, resulting in consistent design as well.
Diffusion models are just now good enough to do UI, and are trained on a much wider set of visual data, resulting in more unique outputs. LLMs are now good enough to convert images to code very effectively, so the end result is better even though you have to do a conversion.
Here's a page detailing the standard flow: https://diffui.ai/blog/show-hn
And here are a couple sample sites built with it:
https://html.non.io/neonRamen (note - not optimized for mobile)
And here are a couple files showing the designs (requires sign in):
https://diffui.ai/app/canvas/9e03f5c2-91c5-4f96-8f08-b8086e5...
https://diffui.ai/app/canvas/95934269-5dc8-4145-a33a-d3a4dc2...
Happy to answer any q's!
A visually grounded AI tutoring application: https://knowable.ca Been working full-time on it for a few months, I'm trying to make the concept of an AI tutor better than just a chatbox.
I work on a suite of open source public transit software projects, collectively called OneBusAway (or OBA). The software is used by millions of transit riders every day around the world, including in New York City, the Seattle area, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.
Through the non-profit that collectively owns OBA, I've been working on a managed services offering to help transit agencies adopt the software, which has historically been beloved by users, but a real pain to set up and maintain. The software, cleverly named OBA Cloud, turns what used to require a month-long engagement with a transit consulting firm into a 15 minute, wizard-driven process.
The best part is that since all of the software is free and open source, a transit agency that decides they love OBA but wants to be locked back into an expensive contract can always ask a consulting firm to run the software for them.
Since last month[1], we've added a number of great new features to OBA Cloud, like broadcasting critical alerts to all riders in the system via push notification, and support for Live Activities on iOS.
We're hosting four new public transit systems over last month, and are continuing to make terrific strides on our other marquee projects:
The iOS app update went live, and our riders are generally loving it: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/onebusaway/id329380089
The new Android app maintainer is gearing up to release the biggest new version of the app in a decade: https://github.com/onebusaway/onebusaway-android/
Our GSoC interns are continuing to do amazing work on their projects, including the next generation OBA API server, Maglev: https://github.com/onebusaway/maglev
We're always looking for more folks to contribute to the project, across a variety of disciplines (ie not just engineers!): https://ossvolunteers.com/organizations/open-transit-softwar...
Two open-source initiatives:
1. https://preseason.ai Basically a benchmarking platform that measures how the top LLMs recommend devtools when prompted to build different types of web apps.
2. https://widen.dev A native Mac desktop Postgres GUI with text-to-SQL. You can even use the LLM that already comes installed in your MacOS.
I'm working on DB Pro [1]
A modern database client with dashboards, saved queries, workflows, and yes, AI built into it.
I've focused on building brilliant UX over the last year, and it has paid off. I've had two emails saying that they have cancelled their Jetbrains subscription for DataGrip which has been so validating.
It's been a labour of love and I'm super happy to have disrupted even a small part of the ginormous market that is database clients.
Had a moment of nostalgia and started building an IRC client for macOS. It’s totally free/open source. And has been fun to customize / add the features I like to see while avoiding the ones I don’t.
https://github.com/richstokes/Netsplit