alt Hacker NewsAsk HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)
What are you working on? Any new ideas that you're thinking about?
Comments
Against my better judgement, I'll post this landing page to a tool I'm working on:
About an hour ago I was dismissed as AI slop on the r/rust Reddit. Whatever.
This tool is my line of defense in case `trunk` goes dead, which it seems to be increasingly likely. It helps me build fullstack sites using Actix Web and Yew.
Using it now to see if I can re-invent my blog site for the umpteenth time. :)
A garbage collector for Bosque!
Helping the damn revolution come quicker
We're building a new CRM from the ground up. We've helped a handful of companies and non-profits set up CRMs and it's amazing how bad existing CRMs are. It's like they don't understand what common day to day tasks need to be made as easy as possible.
We're also trying to use AI more thoughtfully than just bolting on a chatbot. We're planning to consider each workflow our customers need and how AI might help speed them up - even letting them build custom AI workflows. I think most businesses (especially smaller businesses) don't want to work at the level of Claude Code, Codex, etc. They want to work on higher level problems - build this dashboard, connect these data sources, invoice this customer, etc.
Aside from that, we've noticed that the basics really matter, so we're trying to nail that first.
We're definitely a bit delusional, we're just 3 people, we're doing it without funding and the competition is stiff, but we really believe in the product. Additionally, I think a lot of CRMs go south by taking on too much VC that naturally pushes them to prioritize ROI instead of continually improving the product.
Still working on code only CMS: https://val.build
Next up: tasteful AI features then i18n
GitHub: https://github.com/valbuild/val/blob/main/packages/next/READ...
I vibe coded a workout app that lives in the browser and is totally free unlike all the variants in the app store.
I did this in response to my trainer blowing me off.
Been spending quite a bit of time squashing bugs but it's now relatively stable and functional.
Check it out here, https://www.curlbro.com
Converting an app that started per-client deploy, single-tenant, cloud-ignorant and mono-node to multi-tenant, multi-node, cloud storage and a cluster of a few nodes.
On one hand, I regret not having thought it could find a market and I now have to do this and plan a migration.
On the other, I saved a lot of time going to customers instead of building the boring side first... So I don't know what to think of it.
I find that most of the development work is now "ops" instead of user-facing features (either addition, removal, or polish) and am a bit perplex at this.
Still refining 3D metal printing slicer software for a new scalable industrial process. Focused on reducing platform cost into hobby budget ranges, improve user safety, and allow weird metal composites. Also trying to keep the heavy wear components 3d printable for home users.
Picked up some more small Xilinx Zynq 7020 dev boards for a quick micro-positioning vacuum-stage control driver. Yeah it was lazy, but I don't have time to spin a custom PCB board these days... or hand optimize LUT counts to fit smaller prototypes.
Also, doing a few small RF projects most people would find boring. =3
I've been working on an AI workspace inside Neovim (and using the editor as the TUI). When I started, I asked myself, "Wait, WHAT?! Another one? Who would use this?" However the goal was never about eyes (well, GH stars) on this new thing, it was about learning. I wanted to dig deeper into how modern-day tools work so I can understand the sort of 'magic' I was experiencing using tools like Claude Code. The more I've been working on this side project, the more I understand about AI systems, agent loops, prompt engineering and all the cleverness that goes into making a good, usable, magical AI agent.
More stuff for pony than you can shake a stick at.
build tng.sh. nobody wants it. will kill it :)
was a fun project to do some rust
# My over-engineered console.log replacement is almost API/feature-stable: https://github.com/Leftium/gg
- Named `gg` for grep-ibility and ease of typing.
- However Claude has been inserting most calls for me (and can now read back the client-side results without any dev interaction!)
- Here is how Claude used gg to fix a layout bug in itself (gg ships with an optional dev console): https://github.com/Leftium/gg/blob/main/references/gg-consol...
---
# I've been prototyping realtime streaming transcription UX: https://rift-transcription.vercel.app
- Really want to use dictation app in addition to typing on a daily basis, but the current UX of all apps I've tried are insufficient.
---
# https://veneer.leftium.com is a thin layer over Google forms + sheets
- If you can use Google forms, you can publish a nice-looking web site with an optional form
- Example: https://www.vivimil.com
- Example: https://veneer.leftium.com/s.1RoVLit_cAJPZBeFYzSwHc7vADV_fYL...
- DEMO (feel free to try the sign up feature): https://veneer.leftium.com/g.chwbD7sLmAoLe65Z8
I've been ramping up development of https://whodoyouknowhere.io
It is a forum application where each community is invite only. Think a cross between reddit/discord. The invite only architecture reduces trolls, spam, AI slop and promotes more substantive discussions.
Right now invitations are limited to 1 per day for each user in a community. You don't need an invite to join at the global level - but to join any community you must have received an invitation link. Still a major work in progress, right now working on expanding the flexibility of community creation and invitation logic. (allowing bulk invites, adding flexible invitation cool downs, etc).
A PKMS (Personal Knowledge Management System) VS Code extension - "AS Notes"
https://www.appsoftware.com/products/knowledge-management/as...
It implements [[wikilinking]], backlinking, task management into VS Code. The idea is to bring Logseq / Obsidian capability to VS Code.
The blurb:
If you already live in VS Code, why manage your notes somewhere else? AS Notes brings the power of wikilink-based knowledge management - the kind you'd find in Obsidian or Logseq - directly into your editor. No Electron wrapper. No separate app. No syncing headaches. Just your markdown files, your Git repo, and the editor you already know.
Why AS Notes? Your data stays local. No cloud sync, no telemetry, no accounts. Your notes are plain .md files in a folder you control. Git-friendly by design. Every note is a .md file - diff them, branch them, review them. Your knowledge base gets the same versioning discipline as your code. Lightweight. A local SQLite database (powered by WASM - no native dependencies) keeps everything fast without bloating your workspace. Key Features Wikilinks Type [[ to trigger page selection and autocomplete. Links resolve to .md files anywhere in your workspace - not just the current folder. If the target doesn't exist, it's created automatically, useful for forward-referencing pages you plan to write later.
Renaming a page offers to update every reference across your workspace. Hover tooltips show the target file, whether it exists, and how many other pages link to it.
Backlinks The Backlinks panel shows every page that links to the file you're currently editing, with surrounding line text for context. A straightforward way to see how ideas connect across your knowledge base.
Open it with Ctrl+Alt+B - it stays in sync as you navigate between files.
AS Notes Backlinks Task Management A lightweight task system built on standard markdown checkboxes. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter on any line to cycle through states (unchecked → checked → plain text). The Tasks panel in the Explorer sidebar aggregates every task across your entire knowledge base, grouped by page - filter to show only unchecked items, or toggle completion directly from the panel.
Page Aliases Define aliases in YAML front matter so multiple names resolve to the same page. [[JS]] and [[ECMAScript]] can both navigate to JavaScript.md. Backlink counts include alias references, and rename tracking updates aliases in front matter automatically.
Daily Journal Press Ctrl+Alt+J to create or open today's journal entry. AS Notes generates a dated markdown file from a customisable template - add your own sections, prompts, or front matter to shape your daily workflow. Journal files are indexed instantly, so wikilinks and backlinks work from the moment the file is created.
AS Notes translates nested wikilinks when rendering markdown previews so links navigate correctly. Works alongside other markdown extensions - Mermaid diagrams, for example.
https://deepwalker.xyz - Mobile Agent.
Canadian c3 citizenship application.
A flight simulator with realistic world (Google Maps) in the browser: https://worldflightsim.com/beta/
A theme hospital meet silicon valley game :D https://burn-rate.pages.dev/
We're building a repairable and fireproof e-bike battery at https://infinite-battery.com
After reading Sebastian Aaltonen's No Graphics API blog post [1], now I'm working on implementing the suggested API using Metal 4.
Also I gave that blog post to Claude Code and asked to implement the API and it made terrible terrible mistakes. Just saying.
org-babel for neovim, using markdown instead of org as the file format.
I posted another comment about my main project, but on the side, I'm working on an ergonomic local sandbox management tool. Yes, for AI agents, but also for anything else. Crowded space — there's one at the top of the homepage right now — but at the very least it'll work the way I want it to. Currently dogfooding that; if it gets decent I'd likely open-source it.
Also a bunch of other smaller projects and ideas.
I'm working on site that let's you check when a manned space station was last directly over your house.
It's a reference to https://xkcd.com/2883/, which I've always liked and was suprised there was no tool to check when you last had astronauts over for dinner.
Looking up the location of the ISS at a specific time is easy. Looking up the closest passes of the ISS to a specific location for the last 30 years on-demand is more complicated.
A life
A semantic search engine for urban dictionary to be able to search for stupid phrases that the youth keeps redefining
Problems I'm having: - Getting enriched vectors because the definitions to some of the words are absolute garbage - Finding a good open source embedding model, currently using nomic-embed-text
Goal: Find me words originating from X city and it not giving me results that match X
Figuring out how the google SEO black box works especially after the new anti-ai / slop articles filters went live March 6th taking a bunch of legitimate websites with it.
learning how to fine tune image models, for an attempt at getting diffusion to output LWIR fire mapping data from RGB picture images
so far, ive spent a lot of manual time labeling and matching RGB and LWIR images, and trying to figure out first ways to get better pose matches when the flights arent the same.
that, and many different attempts at getting torch to work using my laptop's GPU and NPU. i think im close, without having to build torch from source woo.
Ive been having an eye towards getting better llm generation quality for python too, but havent put a focus on it yet. im fed up with it making one off script after one off script and instead of just making a react app, making some raw html and making a new html file with the new and old bugs every time i want to do something interactive. its maddening.
my last month of gettin claude code ro play pokemon webt well and ive about learned skills pretty well now, but it keeps wanting to do like a challenge run of sticking with a single pokemon.
I am hauling junk in Silicon Valley: https://650hauling.com
AST-based code modifications from LLMs: https://codeplusequalsai.com/
I'm interested in the idea that LLMs writing raw code and doing line-or-diff replacements will not be the future, but that having the LLMs modify the structure of the code may end up being the best.
Also, I think that building LLM-powered webapps should earn the dev per token call; so I've built a margin into token costs where the end user is charged 2x the provider's token costs, and then I get 20% of the remaining and the dev gets 80%.
working on researching how much the impact of media and ad network requests is on web sites
whole workspace offline sync for notion
In the past couple of months I've
Built a Cythonized Icecast2 implementation I've wanted for years: https://github.com/lukeb42/cycast
Built a p2p Kanban board that fits in a single .html file and uses only the Python stdlib for LAN discovery https://github.com/lukeb42/kanban_p2p
Developed a p2p legislature that scales from a small team of 3 users to countries of tens of millions of people: https://gist.githubusercontent.com/LukeB42/deb887691f13dee9c...
Developed a small SPA framework inspired by React, Ractive-Load and hn.js: https://lukeb42.github.io/vertex-manual.html
Updated a news archival service for Python 3.x: https://github.com/lukeb42/harvest
Made a scriptable IRC client inspired by irssi and mIRC: https://github.com/lukeb42/scroll
and worked on a couple of my company's products.
A tool like Claude Code, Codex, etc. but designed from the beginning to work well with open and local models:
It also comes with nice features and benchmarking abilities. For running evals, it has a companion called Calibra https://calibra.swival.dev
https://proxybase.xyz - residential proxies but for agents
A graphical text editor / IDE in Go with SDL3.
I am still not working on anything big right now, but among the things I did in the last two weeks or so, I improved the widgets-project I maintain. This one is to be used to support as many different GUI toolkits as possible (including use cases for javascript + the web). The idea is to have objects that are abstract and represent a widget, say:
button1 = create_button('Hello world!')
button1.on_clicked {
the_hello_world_button_was_clicked
}
# this is the verbose variant in a pseudo-DSL,
# I like things being explicit. In most code
# I may omit some parts e. g.
_ = button('Hello world!') { :the_hello_world_button_was_clicked }
I recently added the possibility to describe what kind of widgets are to be used via a yaml file, as an option. This may not sound like a huge win, but so far what I like here is that it becomes easier to modify individual widgets without having to sift through code; and it works for more programming languages too. Any customization for the widget, including method-invocations if necessary, can be done via a yaml file now. There is of course a trade off in that the yaml file can become a bit complex (if the GUI uses many widgets), so for the most part I use this for smaller widgets/components that do one specific functionality (or, few specific functionalities). For instance, a GUI over wget. Then if other larger programs need that, I make this small widget more useful and flexible.
The distant goal is to actually use a simple DSL that also would allow average Joe to customize everything in a very easy manner; and to have a widget set that can be used for as many different parts possible including wonky ideas such as having a whole operating system as a GUI available one day (a bit like webmin, but not limited to what webmin does; for instance, I'd also have games such as solitaire, reversi and so forth). I'd like to see how far that idea can go, but it is just a hobby so I can only invest little time into it.
(1) PROJECT "AFFIRMATOR" - Start each day out right with chill jazz wake-up music, then life-success wisdom (Earl Nightingale, Tony Robbins, etc). In the evening, fun latin cooking music plays, and then lo-fi chill tunes. At night, your personalized vocalized affirmations & goals plays, and then drift to sleep with meditation music.
Tech details: I found that used, small form-factor Dell Optiplexes are great for product protoytyping. I'm in Medellin Colombia, and found that you can buy these for about $200 USD - they are often former Point of Sale (POS) or office computers, from about 10 years ago. They have SSDs, run quiet, and are very reliable.
For project Affirmator, I installed Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). Using Cron and Mpv to shuffle-play activity-specific folders of MP3s at the same time each day. For example, for the chill jazz music - I've got a folder of 40+ song MP3s. Cron plays those at 06:30. So it's like a calm, upbeat alarm clock. I'm not a morning person, so this is a "friendly" way for me to wake myself up!
For the vocal affirmation part - I built a Python tool that reads 200+ text affirmations from a markdown/text file. It then uses AWS Polly text-to-speech API to vocalize the affirmations into MP3s. Next, I use `ffmpeg` to add a variable silent spacer gap to the ends of all the MP3s. This allows your to hear a voice affirmation ("I am fit, athletic, and strong!", "I am a confident piano player."), and then there is silent space for you to say it out loud, or repeat in your head.
This project incorporates ideas & routines from: The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale, Tony Robbins Personal Power II, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and Atomic Habits by James Clear
https://codeberg.org/jro/Affirmator-app
(2) PROJECT "LINGOFREQ" - Language learning tool. Uses language-specific high-frequency word lists. Generates example sentences according to a theme/topic. Translates the word & example phrases to English / Spanish / Chinese. Uses Text-to-speech to vocalize the phrases into each language. These phrases are ordered by frequency. When you want to improve your language skills, you set a "window" range of frequency you want to practice, and Lingofreq will play audio files in this range. You can learn Chinese & Spanish while doing the dishes, at the gym, or before going to bed!
Code: https://codeberg.org/jro/LingoFreq-app/src/branch/main/apps
(3) Medellin COMMUNITY MAKER-SPACE / CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR LAB I'm at Medellin Colombia - my mission is to create the best maker-space. I was a member of ASMBLY Maker-space in Austin Texas (great space!) and worked at Pivotal Labs (agile product prototyping / software lab) - so I'm aiming to combine the best ideas from those.
BACK-BURNER projects:
Documenting my Knowledge as "Public Knowledge Base" - https://codeberg.org/jro/Knowledge - Here are my notes on Python, Git - I'm bouncing between Obsidian Sync / Publish / Markdown (currently easiest way), and some sort of open-source knowledge base website (VSCodium + Markdown + FOAM + MkDocs + RClone). I haven't found a solution I'm happy with yet...
Open-source CNC router tech stack: - I have a CNC router (robotic drill which can carve 3D shapes into wood). Last year I challenged myself to operate it completely through an open-source tech stack. This took me on a journey of learning Inkscape (2d vector design tool, SVG), FreeCAD (3D product design / CAD / CAM tool), G-code (format of text instructions which tell CNC tools where to move and what to do), Universal G-Code Sender (a tool which imports CAM - computer aided manufacturing - designs, connects to the CNC router tool, and actually operates machine. It's quite exciting to play with! Used Kiri-moto (web-based CAD / CAM tool) to convert 2D/SVG designs into 3D shapes). Used OBS (screen recording/streaming tool) and a bunch of web-cams to live-stream tool usage to PeerTube Live (similar to YouTube).
Being "principled" about using open-source tools can be so challenging, but its quite rewarding on the long run.
LEARNING SPANISH - What's working for me... trying to read spanish books before bed. Handwriting a few paragraphs from a book into journal. Highlighting words I don't know. Looking them up later. Reading a book while listening to its audio book at the same time.
If anyone's interesting in contributing to these projects, I would warmly welcome that. Design, product, sales, project management, engineering/coding, marketing - need tons of help in all these areas.
Gracias! // JRO
An alternative to Oracle's VBCS Plugin for Excel [1]
Oracle's plugin allows you access Fusion REST Endpoints (your business data) from within an Excel workbook but it only works on Windows machines and has some other limitations.
Also added a plugin for inspecting punchout payloads for RSSP [2]
RSS and podcast Google Readerish clone mostly for myself
basic income to support food access
I made an AMQP message queue which implements only the most commonly used stuff.
It has one SQLite database per queue.
In golang.
Why? Because Rabbit is slow and resource hungry and needs configuration.
A lightweight web-based RSS reader to use on my Kindle.
I'm building the best ebook reader you'll ever find. Supports all devices.
Growth hacking tool on X platform,
https://codeinput.com - Currently working on a comprehensive CODEOWNERS solution. Check out the CLI @ https://github.com/code-input/cli - Chrome Extension @ https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/code-input/fehfhejp... and VS Code extension @ https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=codeinpu...
I have been working on pikku.dev, a typescript server library / framework that does most things and deploys in most places [1]
Been a project I was using for a few years now. Initially started off as express middleware with a few tools chained together to automate as much typing as possible which can run anywhere (similar to hono).
Around a year ago I decided to change the approach and write a layer to statically analyze the typescript code ontop of tsc and pull out as much meta as possible.
After that I went a little crazy and ultimately added wires to everything. HTTP, Websockets, Queues, Scheduled Jobs, etc. All totally agnostic (the core runtime is pretty tiny). So can run scheduled tasks on lambas / a cron job / pgadmin, deploy websockets serverless or local, run your queues again most queue provides, etc.
I then saw Vercels workflow runner and figured, well, I could try do better . Looked at other libraries out there and decided to include addons, which are pikku typescript packages that declare functions which can be automatically imported into your app and are responsible for their own service initialization. If your used to writing n8n plugins be awesome to hear what you think about this approach!
That sort of required me to create a console to view workflows (otherwise what's the point right?). And since everything is statically extracted during runtime we can pretty much just visualise the entire codebase. So all your functions, what permissions each have, etc etc. The idea behind the console is that it doesn't have an actual backend. You install an addon into your own codebase, permission it as you see fit and you point the console towards it. That means you have a unified permissions/auth system as everything else.
Figured the last part was creating an AI agent to wrap it all together. Which is almost there. Subagent flows, tools, approvals, ai middleware that can turn input and output into voices, its does a bit.
Ultimately the idea is you write a function once, and it can be consumed as an AI tool, a workflow step, by a http route, a cron job, a gateway (like whatsapp) (I liked openclaw approach so figured.. why not ).
A function is the source of truth, so is permissioned / authenticated. Been alot of heavy development since I'm building a 'BuildYourAgent' portal ontop that pretty much takes an openapi doc and turns it into an MCP server / hooks it up to an agent / gives you a CLI around it so it can integrate with all the crazy wild west approaches, while you know, still allowing us to maintain sanity and build servers that don't hallucinate and burn forests down.
Curious on thoughts! Bit of a rambling explanation. I hope the website does a better job! Lots of content helped with AI (I prefer speaking tech, but doesn't always transition well).
Also, looking for a potential cofounder to help balance that out! If your interested in potentially working together / adopting pikku feel free to leave a comment / ping me an email
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Trying to get into learning more about Hardware Security Modules and PKCS#11