alt Hacker NewsAsk HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)
What are you working on? Any new ideas that you're thinking about?
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I'm working on an anonymous Dead Man's Switch (https://alcazarsec.com/deadmanswitch). You don't need any personal information to sign up, and you can configure email messages that will be automatically sent only when you stop checking in.
This can be useful for families handling digital legacy, solo founders, journalists, and others.
Let me know if you give it a try!
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
I am currently working on a safer, way smaller but still very capable version of OpenClaw, by harnessing the power of the Claude Agent SDK (the Agent is based on Claude) and the simplicity to integrate it into Telegram. Feel free to check it out!
I've been working on HODLings, a private crypto tracker, which doesn't track you!
https://www.geosystemsdev.com/products/hodlings/
In essence, it runs on your mobile device and stores all your data locally. It only connects to the freely available CoinGecko API (for latest prices) and GitHub (for reference and historical data). A background job updates GitHub ref data hourly. There's no login, no cloud, no ads, etc.
https://github.com/paradedb/paradedb -- Full-text & vector search natively in Postgres
I'm building Rep Sheet (https://repsheet.fit) — a workout tracker where you upload a picture of your program (a PDF, whiteboard, coach's spreadsheet) and it's parsed into a structured plan you can log against.
Early days — would love feedback from anyone who's interested.
I've been building a structured agent swarm to autonomously build apps using small local models.
Big models can navigate large scope well enough, but smaller ones need more scoping. I feel like it's an under-developed dimension of agentic systems.
A bit more detail: https://x.com/AntoineZambelli/status/2043697520455323948?s=2...
Just shipped numa v0.13.0: added request hedging (fires a parallel query after 10ms if the primary stalls, inspired by Google's Tail at Scale paper) wire-level cache with serve-stale (RFC 8767) and a DoT client for encrypted upstream.
Wrote about the tail latency investigation: https://numa.rs/blog/posts/fixing-doh-tail-latency.html
I've been using speech-to-text tools every day now especially for dictating detailed prompts to LLMs and coding agents. I personally use VoiceInk which is open-source.
I tried to look for what other solutions are available and I've collected all the best open-source ones in this awesome-style GitHub repo. Hope you find something that works for you!
I've been working on version 2 of ClaroHQ (https://clarohq.com), which is a time blocking app for freelancers. Instead of playing with Start/Stop timers, you log your work with 1-click time chips, generate a perfect PDF, and draft an email in 30 seconds.
I built it because I was sick of paying for complex invoicing tools that charged monthly fees for features I never used.
Let me know if you want to try it out. I'll be happy to set you up with an account.
Building CiteLLM, an API that extracts structured data from PDFs and returns exact source locations for every field.
There's also a widget so you can add click-to-verify to your own app in a few lines of code.
Click any value, jump straight to the highlighted source in the PDF.
Demo: https://citellm.com/demo
Well, Electric Minds Reborn is now online: https://electricminds.org
I will be continuing work on the new software that powers it, the Amsterdam Web Communities System. https://github.com/amysoxcolo/amsterdam
(I tried to "launch" it with a Show HN post, but it sank without a trace. I may try again, after I get back from vacation...)
Working on https://delo.so - a new offline first, no subscriptions, no cloud, CAD for makers. I'm very close to the public beta release. Should happen late April/early May.
https://github.com/NetwindHQ/gha-outrunner - github actions local, ephemeral runner which runs jobs in docker container, tart vm org kvm (depending on the host/guest)
hi, i am currently working on an idea i had for years but now decided to make it reality
a texteditor with spreadsheet like formulas - does this even make sense? super super early buggy release - feedback welcome - any feedback, thx
A 3D cluster visualization of S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100 markets. Created with Svelte and Three.js.
I’ve started streaming programming on Twitch and YouTube live.
Used to do it for friends only, but been publishing publicly since recently and it’s fun.
“Senior dev, junior attitude”
https://youtube.com/@harlybarluy
Spent 3h today adding a “system” filter to jq only to find out there are like seventeen PRs for this going back ten years. T_T I live but I don’t learn.
I "wrote" (vibe-coded) a non-chronological RSS reader. I crawled the blogrolls of some blogs I liked, fetched all the posts (with full text) and ran a clustering algorithm on them. LLMs classify the content to filter out meta/political/personal posts. And a LLM gives names to the clusters by sampling the contents.
It's an amazing source of long things to read. There is so much stuff worth reading that has been posted in several decades of blogging.
Working on Originary, built around PEAC, an open protocol for signed interaction records.
The idea is to make agent, MCP, and API interactions verifiable across org boundaries instead of relying only on logs. Still early, but that’s the thing I’m most focused on right now.
Originary: https://www.originary.xyz PEAC: https://github.com/peacprotocol/peac
I’m working on Dispatch (https://github.com/jhartwell/dispatch) a Clojure(Script) library to handle cli arguments parsing with a command/subcommand style. Still am working on the best way to handle options and I have a bunch of changes in mind that I want in before publishing to clojars
www.bundleup.io - I’ve been working on a way to stop rewriting OAuth flows for every API. Integrations start simple but turn into a mess once you deal with refresh tokens, retries, and edge cases. Still early, but it’s been useful for my own projects so far.
I’m working on a combination of a semantic embedder and vector database with a focus on Apple devices https://github.com/emmettmcdow/dve
It should be drop in semantic search for any text. No need to worry about what models, what database, how the data is processed, dealing with performance concerns. None of that. Just vector search.
Working on a rogue-like discord activity game (soon to be multiplayer) that connects to Cloudflare durable object web sockets.
It takes my favorite elements from games like: WoW character min-max design and rotation Diablo 2/POE for item and crafting inspiration Slay the spire dungeon flow/fights.
It is uses pixel art I commissioned a decade ago that I am looking to finish a game with.
Looking for some early feedback! https://crux.lakin.dev/
Working on Questly (https://questly.academy/) — an AI simulation platform for practicing difficult real-world conversations (negotiations, feedback, conflict). Think flight simulator, but for conversations people usually avoid. Built it after noticing how often people ‘prepare’ mentally but freeze in the actual moment.
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 a AI RAG (retrieval augmented generation) system: https://longtermemory.com
It's a tool that use QDrant, a vectorial db, to embedding the texts chunks: LLM api is questioned to generate the Q&A pairs from a chunked texts.
Each chunk is then embedded and stored in the vectorial db to facilitate the Q&A generation, thanks to better context informations.
This tool helping people to study everything thanks to even Spaced Repetition algorithm.
My team and I have been building stagex, a FOSS multi-party reviewed/built/signed, deterministic, full source bootstrapped, llvm native, container native, musl/mimalloc native linux distribution to build all the things.
Based on top of that is Caution, the first FOSS general purpose verifiable compute platform launching next week in private beta.
A free and open source language learning app in the form of a pixel-art game - it currently supports 6 languages. It's something I feel Duolingo should've been but I've seen them drift further and further from the point. The app is fully offline and there's no accounts or signup
Rn it's on the appstore: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lexaway/id6761870125
I am working on a routine tracker app. I have been searching for an app where I could create programs, schedules and routines for various things that I consistently work on in a structured way (ex. workout program, music practice, language study, etc.). I haven't been able to find anything that I could use across my interests so I am building it myself. It's currently in the internal testing phase of the playstore and am working to get it out this month.
My 8-year-old video browser software Video Hub App - shows thumbnails from video as you hover with your mouse. Working on adding minor improvements before I finally get to the (optional) facial recognition "search by face similarity" feature.
Been rolling around from project to project this past month.
A SSO application in rust(not public)
A DNS for a dream project of mine which is a hosting provider company like digital ocean but in Scandinavia(not public).
A code hosting site for said hosting company called bofink(not public)
Ansible playbooks for applying database patches that can resume and create schemas etc, based on an internal tool from a former job. This is public and available on my github if anyone wants to look at it not linking it because there are way cooler projects here.
I didn't like the way diagramming apps looked like (at least web based ones) so I built https://grafly.io. No server, uses localstorage and has download/upload of diagrams/entire db. Also has a description of the datastructures so AI can generate the diagrams for you. Also you can import Mermaid and other text based diagrams.
More a practice than a project, but I'm working on using voice as much as possible to interact with computers. This started with mapping the Tap Assistance on my phone to ChatGPT voice, then vibe coding better voice transcription for my computer, then shifting increasing amounts of work to Claude Remote control, etc.
This is less of a latency/efficiency thing and more about disconnecting the eyes from a screen and fingers from a keyboard. The upside is more walking, flow and creativity.
It's been a LONG time since my college linear class. I know it is not impressive or fancy, but I am working on a little page that will let you create a couple of matrices or a matrix and a vector, and will do the basic algebra for you. I know there are already many sites out there that do this, but this is also helping me refresh my linear algebra knowledge. Multiplying two matrices is crazy, right?
I’ve started moving off WordPress to Yapress. It’s a Git-managed static setup with a migration script, though I haven’t run the full migration yet. Right now, I’m testing the setup and validating the workflow.
The trade-off seems reasonable so far. By going static, the main thing I lose is comments.
The project is still in progress, but I made solid progress over the weekend.
The project is here: https://github.com/yusufaytas/yapress
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've been working on https://game-pick.eu , a website for friends to easily decide on games to play together. It is voting-based and can show who has which game in their library to see who would yet have to buy it. I'm planning on adding features for finding new friends to play with also. It's my first real web project, so I'm excited how it will go.
Tiny platform for app https://github.com/blue-monads/potatoverse
Recently I have been doing a modern Lotus Agenda clone as a native iOS app. I have been implementing a custom CRM using that platform.
Also, Arch Ascent, which is a tool for evolveing microservice-heavy architectures.
https://github.com/mikko-ahonen/arch-ascent/blob/main/doc/de...
https://fablesandfriends.games
It's still VERY much in development but I'm building a site that allows people to find TTRPG games that are suited to them AND includes a suite of tools for both GMs and players in said games.
Players will be able to showcase characters they're playing or have played and GMs can manage campaigns (scheduling, notes). I'm a D&D player but I'm trying to make it system-agnostic
Working on m experimentall alternative to PHP's composer. Some projects took 2-3 mins to update with composer, only to fail at the end. Wanted to rework this, but the composer code is big and I honestly didn't feel like touching more PHP than I had to.
So I built my own package manager that's almost ready for alpha.
3 things currently; some fun toys..
Web based two player bingo race game in an attempt to drag significant other away from mobile phone. :p
Optimised gravity sim, everyone loves a good gravity sim. Event driven physics and aiming for 10000 spheres at 60fps.
Alife simulation where critters can read and write symbols into/from their environment to see if we can't get some kind of rudimentary communication evolved.
Nothing super serious, but fun gadgets to tinker with :)
We're building a repairable and fireproof e-bike battery at https://infinite-battery.com :)
I coded a visual novel/adventure game framework in pygame. Pretty much just to see if ai could handle a full project.
Eventually I got scope creeped into a full game with branching stories, item crafting, and a custom cutscene engine...even Trained a model for a few specific art assets.
Nitor - a discord clone with a shared/federated Identity layer, but self-hosted "servers/guilds". Trust model is to trust the guild server (e.g., so private channels work as one would expect with moderation capabilities), but to enable E2E DMs and friend/presence systems via guild servers as relays. Rust, Iced, Iroh.
Glyphcraft - a Minecraft mod (imagine if Thaumcraft, Ars Nouveau, and Hex Casting were smashed together)
Still doing https://plannotator.ai
I use it daily and so do others, for - better UX, feedback, and review surfaces for ai coding agents.
1. Plan review & iterative feedback.
2. Now code review with iterative feedback.
The most recent project I’ve been working through has been a tool for JSON query evaluation and debugging [0] inspired by how easy regex101 is to use.
I couldn’t find any that were as nice or as powerful to use for writing JSONPath queries, so instead of spending an hour crafting and testing them manually, I spent >40 hours building this tool to save myself half an hour.
I’ve been thinking about a problem between algorithms and GPU execution.
More specifically, I’ve been exploring whether changing task structure should lead to changing compute flow as well, instead of forcing everything through a fixed pipeline. One direction I’m thinking about is a dynamic topological algorithm together with a matching GPU-side execution model.
I am building the perma-lib on the topic of ethics and sustainable practices: Ꭰ-Library
Pronounce A-Library "The Unicode character for the Cherokee letter 'A' (Ꭰ) is U+13A0"
Launching a kick-starter for it in the coming weeks. Hoping to make a difference for the next few generations for a better world and education.
and
I got no links to share but I’m working on a chess trainer app. Unlike the myriad of other platforms out there my trainer offers a holistic approach showing you where exactly you make mistakes (in the opening or middlegame) and how they carry on into your gameplay. It’s an offline application, no subscription, one time purchase. Works by downloading your data from your favourite chess platform.
I’m working on Buildermark (open source, local) that calculates how much of your code is written with coding agents.
It scans your claude and codex history to find edits and matches those to git commits (even if the code was auto-formatted).
https://buildermark.dev/
You can browse all 364 prompts that wrote 94% of the code here:
https://demo.buildermark.dev/projects/u020uhEFtuWwPei6z6nbN