The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past day
Latest posts:
Show HN: Duck-UI – Browser-Based SQL IDE for DuckDB
I built Duck-UI, a web-based SQL editor that runs DuckDB entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. No backend required.<p>The Problem: Every time I needed to query csv, parquet, or even to play with SQL, I had to either:
(a) spin up a Jupyter notebook
(b) use the CLI
(c) upload to a hosted service.<p>Friction at every step (TOO MUCH to load a csv or even to test some sql (study)...<p>The Solution: DuckDB's WASM runtime lets us run SQL analysis client-side. Load CSV/JSON/Parquet files from disk or URL, write SQL, get results instantly. Data stays on your machine.
What It Does:<p>SQL editor with autocomplete & syntax highlighting
Import CSV, JSON, Parquet, Arrow (local or remote URLs)
Query history, keyboard shortcuts, theme toggle
Persistent storage via OPFS (data survives browser refresh)
Optional: Connect to external DuckDB servers
One-liner Docker deployment or Node 20+ dev server<p>Technical Details:<p>DuckDB compiled to WASM; query execution in-browser
OPFS-backed persistence
Apache 2.0 licensed
Runs on Chrome 88+, Firefox 79+, Safari 14+<p>Use Cases:<p>Learning SQL without setting up databases
Ad-hoc data exploration (CSV → SQL in seconds)
Quick prototyping before shipping to production
Privacy-conscious workflows (no data leaves your browser)<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/ibero-data/duck-ui" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ibero-data/duck-ui</a>
Live Demo: <a href="https://demo.duckui.com" rel="nofollow">https://demo.duckui.com</a>
Quick Start: docker run -p 5522:5522 ghcr.io/ibero-data/duck-ui:latest<p>Would love feedback on:
(1) Use cases I'm missing
(2) Performance bottlenecks you hit
(3) Features that would make this your default SQL scratchpad.
Show HN: Duck-UI – Browser-Based SQL IDE for DuckDB
I built Duck-UI, a web-based SQL editor that runs DuckDB entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. No backend required.<p>The Problem: Every time I needed to query csv, parquet, or even to play with SQL, I had to either:
(a) spin up a Jupyter notebook
(b) use the CLI
(c) upload to a hosted service.<p>Friction at every step (TOO MUCH to load a csv or even to test some sql (study)...<p>The Solution: DuckDB's WASM runtime lets us run SQL analysis client-side. Load CSV/JSON/Parquet files from disk or URL, write SQL, get results instantly. Data stays on your machine.
What It Does:<p>SQL editor with autocomplete & syntax highlighting
Import CSV, JSON, Parquet, Arrow (local or remote URLs)
Query history, keyboard shortcuts, theme toggle
Persistent storage via OPFS (data survives browser refresh)
Optional: Connect to external DuckDB servers
One-liner Docker deployment or Node 20+ dev server<p>Technical Details:<p>DuckDB compiled to WASM; query execution in-browser
OPFS-backed persistence
Apache 2.0 licensed
Runs on Chrome 88+, Firefox 79+, Safari 14+<p>Use Cases:<p>Learning SQL without setting up databases
Ad-hoc data exploration (CSV → SQL in seconds)
Quick prototyping before shipping to production
Privacy-conscious workflows (no data leaves your browser)<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/ibero-data/duck-ui" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ibero-data/duck-ui</a>
Live Demo: <a href="https://demo.duckui.com" rel="nofollow">https://demo.duckui.com</a>
Quick Start: docker run -p 5522:5522 ghcr.io/ibero-data/duck-ui:latest<p>Would love feedback on:
(1) Use cases I'm missing
(2) Performance bottlenecks you hit
(3) Features that would make this your default SQL scratchpad.
Show HN: Duck-UI – Browser-Based SQL IDE for DuckDB
I built Duck-UI, a web-based SQL editor that runs DuckDB entirely in your browser via WebAssembly. No backend required.<p>The Problem: Every time I needed to query csv, parquet, or even to play with SQL, I had to either:
(a) spin up a Jupyter notebook
(b) use the CLI
(c) upload to a hosted service.<p>Friction at every step (TOO MUCH to load a csv or even to test some sql (study)...<p>The Solution: DuckDB's WASM runtime lets us run SQL analysis client-side. Load CSV/JSON/Parquet files from disk or URL, write SQL, get results instantly. Data stays on your machine.
What It Does:<p>SQL editor with autocomplete & syntax highlighting
Import CSV, JSON, Parquet, Arrow (local or remote URLs)
Query history, keyboard shortcuts, theme toggle
Persistent storage via OPFS (data survives browser refresh)
Optional: Connect to external DuckDB servers
One-liner Docker deployment or Node 20+ dev server<p>Technical Details:<p>DuckDB compiled to WASM; query execution in-browser
OPFS-backed persistence
Apache 2.0 licensed
Runs on Chrome 88+, Firefox 79+, Safari 14+<p>Use Cases:<p>Learning SQL without setting up databases
Ad-hoc data exploration (CSV → SQL in seconds)
Quick prototyping before shipping to production
Privacy-conscious workflows (no data leaves your browser)<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/ibero-data/duck-ui" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ibero-data/duck-ui</a>
Live Demo: <a href="https://demo.duckui.com" rel="nofollow">https://demo.duckui.com</a>
Quick Start: docker run -p 5522:5522 ghcr.io/ibero-data/duck-ui:latest<p>Would love feedback on:
(1) Use cases I'm missing
(2) Performance bottlenecks you hit
(3) Features that would make this your default SQL scratchpad.
Show HN: Land use visualization for European countries
We have another election coming up at the end of this month here in the Netherlands, and how we use our limited land is a hotly debated topic.<p>Last year also I shared this animated hexagonal map of Dutch land use. I've now expanded this to include several more European countries, so you can see what makes Dutch land use so special - or not.<p>If you want to help add more countries, I'd appreciate PRs on GitHub. The map rendering is already there, it only requires land use data which can be found in the SQLite database (at least for EU countries).<p>Github: <a href="https://github.com/vnglst/onsland" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/vnglst/onsland</a>
Previous HN: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40599763">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40599763</a>
Show HN: Compression-Resistant Data Transfers
Show HN: The Shape of YouTube
A project inspired by <a href="https://www.theshapeofmovies.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theshapeofmovies.com/</a>
Submit a YouTube video and get a nice color analysis!
60 seconds maximum because I have a small server, but I hope you'll like it.
I use a Python backend with yt-dlp, and ffmpeg + scipy for the frame processing.
Show HN: The Shape of YouTube
A project inspired by <a href="https://www.theshapeofmovies.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theshapeofmovies.com/</a>
Submit a YouTube video and get a nice color analysis!
60 seconds maximum because I have a small server, but I hope you'll like it.
I use a Python backend with yt-dlp, and ffmpeg + scipy for the frame processing.
Show HN: ServiceRadar – open-source Network Observability Platform
ServiceRadar is an open-source platform for distributed, secure network management and observability, scaling to 100k+ devices. Born from frustration with complex traditional NMS tools like Zabbix, it bridges legacy (SNMP/syslog) and modern (gNMI, OTLP) protocols for cloud-native environments.<p>We built ServiceRadar to simplify monitoring hybrid telecom networks, evolving it into a Kubernetes-native solution with Helm and Docker support. It uses mTLS with SPIFFE/SPIRE, NATS JetStream for event streaming (90M+ EPS), and SRQL for intuitive queries. Integrated with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and CloudEvents, it fills the network visibility gap in CNCF’s application-focused observability stack.<p>We’re seeking early adopters to try our demo or deploy locally—no sign-up needed. Feedback on usability or contributions for new protocols would be awesome.<p>Quick Start: helm install serviceradar carverauto/serviceradar or docker compose up -d<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/carverauto/serviceradar" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carverauto/serviceradar</a> (please star!)<p>Docs: <a href="https://docs.serviceradar.cloud" rel="nofollow">https://docs.serviceradar.cloud</a><p>Join our Discord or use GitHub Issues to share thoughts.
Show HN: ServiceRadar – open-source Network Observability Platform
ServiceRadar is an open-source platform for distributed, secure network management and observability, scaling to 100k+ devices. Born from frustration with complex traditional NMS tools like Zabbix, it bridges legacy (SNMP/syslog) and modern (gNMI, OTLP) protocols for cloud-native environments.<p>We built ServiceRadar to simplify monitoring hybrid telecom networks, evolving it into a Kubernetes-native solution with Helm and Docker support. It uses mTLS with SPIFFE/SPIRE, NATS JetStream for event streaming (90M+ EPS), and SRQL for intuitive queries. Integrated with OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and CloudEvents, it fills the network visibility gap in CNCF’s application-focused observability stack.<p>We’re seeking early adopters to try our demo or deploy locally—no sign-up needed. Feedback on usability or contributions for new protocols would be awesome.<p>Quick Start: helm install serviceradar carverauto/serviceradar or docker compose up -d<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/carverauto/serviceradar" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carverauto/serviceradar</a> (please star!)<p>Docs: <a href="https://docs.serviceradar.cloud" rel="nofollow">https://docs.serviceradar.cloud</a><p>Join our Discord or use GitHub Issues to share thoughts.
Show HN: Specific (YC F25) – Build backends with specifications instead of code
Hi folks! Iman and I (Fabian) have been building Specific for a while now and are finally opening up our public beta.<p>Specific is a platform for building backend APIs and services entirely through natural-language specifications and tests, without writing code. We then automatically turn your specs into a working system and deploy it for you, along with any infrastructure needed.<p>We know a lot of developers who have already adopted spec-driven development to focus on high-level design and let coding agents take care of implementation. We are attempting to take this even further by making the specs themselves the source of truth. Of course, we can’t blindly trust coding agents to follow the spec, so we also support adding tests that will run to ensure the system behaves as expected and to avoid regressions.<p>There is so much ground to cover, so we are focusing on a smaller set of initial features that in our experience should cover a large portion of backends:<p>- An HTTP server for each project. Authentication can be added by simply stating in the spec how you want to protect your endpoint.<p>- A database automatically spun up and schema configured if the spec indicates persistence is needed.<p>- External APIs can be called. You can even link out to API docs in your specs.<p>You currently can’t see the generated code, but we are working on enabling it. Of course, we don’t claim any ownership of the generated code and will gladly let you export it and continue building elsewhere.<p>Specific is free to try and we are really eager to hear your feedback on it!<p>Try it here: <a href="https://app.specific.dev">https://app.specific.dev</a>
Show HN: A large format XY scanning hyperspectral camera
Show HN: A large format XY scanning hyperspectral camera
Show HN: A large format XY scanning hyperspectral camera
Show HN: We packaged an MCP server inside Chromium
Hey HN, we just shipped a browser with an inbuilt MCP server!<p>We're a YC startup (S24) building BrowserOS — an open‑source Chromium fork. We're a privacy‑first alternative to the new wave of AI browsers like Dia, Perplexity Comet. Since launching ~3 months ago, the #1 request has been to expose our browser as an MCP server.<p>-- Google beat us to launch with chrome-devtools-mcp (solid product btw), which lets you build/debug web apps by connecting Chrome to coding assistants. But we wanted to take this a step further: we packaged the MCP server directly into our browser binary. That gives three advantages:<p>1. MCP server setup is super simple — no npx install, no starting Chrome with CDP flags, you just download the BrowserOS binary.<p>2. with our browser's inbuilt MCP server, AI agents can interact using your logged‑in sessions (unlike chrome-devtools-mcp which starts a fresh headless instance each time)<p>3. our MCP server also exposes new APIs from Chromium's C++ core to click, type, and draw bounding boxes on a webpage. Our APIs are also not CDP-based (Chrome Debug Protocol) and have robust anti-bot detection.<p>-- Few example use cases for BrowserOS-mcp are:<p>a) *Frontend development with Claude Code*: instead of screenshot‑pasting, claude-code gets WYSIWYG access. It can write code, take a screenshot, check console logs, and fix issues in one agentic sweep. Since it has your sessions, it can do QA stuff like "test the auth flow with my Google Sign‑In." Here's a video of claude-code using browserOS to improve the css styling with back-and-forth checking: <a href="https://youtu.be/vcSxzIIkg_0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/vcSxzIIkg_0</a><p>b) *Use as an agentic browser:* You can install BrowserOS-mcp in claude-code or Claude Desktop and do things like form-filling, extraction, multi-step agentic tasks, etc. It honestly works better than Perplexity Comet! Here's a video of claude-code opening top 5 hacker news posts and summarizing: <a href="https://youtu.be/rPFx_Btajj0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/rPFx_Btajj0</a><p>-- *How we packaged MCP server inside Chromium binary*: We package the server as a Bun binary and expose MCP tools over HTTP instead of stdio (to support multiple sessions). And we have a BrowserOS controller installed as an extension at the application layer which the MCP server connects to over WebSocket to control the browser. Here's a rough architecture diagram: <a href="https://dub.sh/browseros-mcp-diag" rel="nofollow">https://dub.sh/browseros-mcp-diag</a><p>-- *How to install and use it:* We put together a short guide here: <a href="https://git.new/browseros-mcp" rel="nofollow">https://git.new/browseros-mcp</a><p>Our vision is to reimagine the browser as an operating system for AI agents, and packaging an MCP server directly into it is a big unlock for that!<p>I'll be hanging around all day, would love to get your feedback and answer any questions!
Show HN: We packaged an MCP server inside Chromium
Hey HN, we just shipped a browser with an inbuilt MCP server!<p>We're a YC startup (S24) building BrowserOS — an open‑source Chromium fork. We're a privacy‑first alternative to the new wave of AI browsers like Dia, Perplexity Comet. Since launching ~3 months ago, the #1 request has been to expose our browser as an MCP server.<p>-- Google beat us to launch with chrome-devtools-mcp (solid product btw), which lets you build/debug web apps by connecting Chrome to coding assistants. But we wanted to take this a step further: we packaged the MCP server directly into our browser binary. That gives three advantages:<p>1. MCP server setup is super simple — no npx install, no starting Chrome with CDP flags, you just download the BrowserOS binary.<p>2. with our browser's inbuilt MCP server, AI agents can interact using your logged‑in sessions (unlike chrome-devtools-mcp which starts a fresh headless instance each time)<p>3. our MCP server also exposes new APIs from Chromium's C++ core to click, type, and draw bounding boxes on a webpage. Our APIs are also not CDP-based (Chrome Debug Protocol) and have robust anti-bot detection.<p>-- Few example use cases for BrowserOS-mcp are:<p>a) *Frontend development with Claude Code*: instead of screenshot‑pasting, claude-code gets WYSIWYG access. It can write code, take a screenshot, check console logs, and fix issues in one agentic sweep. Since it has your sessions, it can do QA stuff like "test the auth flow with my Google Sign‑In." Here's a video of claude-code using browserOS to improve the css styling with back-and-forth checking: <a href="https://youtu.be/vcSxzIIkg_0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/vcSxzIIkg_0</a><p>b) *Use as an agentic browser:* You can install BrowserOS-mcp in claude-code or Claude Desktop and do things like form-filling, extraction, multi-step agentic tasks, etc. It honestly works better than Perplexity Comet! Here's a video of claude-code opening top 5 hacker news posts and summarizing: <a href="https://youtu.be/rPFx_Btajj0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/rPFx_Btajj0</a><p>-- *How we packaged MCP server inside Chromium binary*: We package the server as a Bun binary and expose MCP tools over HTTP instead of stdio (to support multiple sessions). And we have a BrowserOS controller installed as an extension at the application layer which the MCP server connects to over WebSocket to control the browser. Here's a rough architecture diagram: <a href="https://dub.sh/browseros-mcp-diag" rel="nofollow">https://dub.sh/browseros-mcp-diag</a><p>-- *How to install and use it:* We put together a short guide here: <a href="https://git.new/browseros-mcp" rel="nofollow">https://git.new/browseros-mcp</a><p>Our vision is to reimagine the browser as an operating system for AI agents, and packaging an MCP server directly into it is a big unlock for that!<p>I'll be hanging around all day, would love to get your feedback and answer any questions!
Show HN: We packaged an MCP server inside Chromium
Hey HN, we just shipped a browser with an inbuilt MCP server!<p>We're a YC startup (S24) building BrowserOS — an open‑source Chromium fork. We're a privacy‑first alternative to the new wave of AI browsers like Dia, Perplexity Comet. Since launching ~3 months ago, the #1 request has been to expose our browser as an MCP server.<p>-- Google beat us to launch with chrome-devtools-mcp (solid product btw), which lets you build/debug web apps by connecting Chrome to coding assistants. But we wanted to take this a step further: we packaged the MCP server directly into our browser binary. That gives three advantages:<p>1. MCP server setup is super simple — no npx install, no starting Chrome with CDP flags, you just download the BrowserOS binary.<p>2. with our browser's inbuilt MCP server, AI agents can interact using your logged‑in sessions (unlike chrome-devtools-mcp which starts a fresh headless instance each time)<p>3. our MCP server also exposes new APIs from Chromium's C++ core to click, type, and draw bounding boxes on a webpage. Our APIs are also not CDP-based (Chrome Debug Protocol) and have robust anti-bot detection.<p>-- Few example use cases for BrowserOS-mcp are:<p>a) *Frontend development with Claude Code*: instead of screenshot‑pasting, claude-code gets WYSIWYG access. It can write code, take a screenshot, check console logs, and fix issues in one agentic sweep. Since it has your sessions, it can do QA stuff like "test the auth flow with my Google Sign‑In." Here's a video of claude-code using browserOS to improve the css styling with back-and-forth checking: <a href="https://youtu.be/vcSxzIIkg_0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/vcSxzIIkg_0</a><p>b) *Use as an agentic browser:* You can install BrowserOS-mcp in claude-code or Claude Desktop and do things like form-filling, extraction, multi-step agentic tasks, etc. It honestly works better than Perplexity Comet! Here's a video of claude-code opening top 5 hacker news posts and summarizing: <a href="https://youtu.be/rPFx_Btajj0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/rPFx_Btajj0</a><p>-- *How we packaged MCP server inside Chromium binary*: We package the server as a Bun binary and expose MCP tools over HTTP instead of stdio (to support multiple sessions). And we have a BrowserOS controller installed as an extension at the application layer which the MCP server connects to over WebSocket to control the browser. Here's a rough architecture diagram: <a href="https://dub.sh/browseros-mcp-diag" rel="nofollow">https://dub.sh/browseros-mcp-diag</a><p>-- *How to install and use it:* We put together a short guide here: <a href="https://git.new/browseros-mcp" rel="nofollow">https://git.new/browseros-mcp</a><p>Our vision is to reimagine the browser as an operating system for AI agents, and packaging an MCP server directly into it is a big unlock for that!<p>I'll be hanging around all day, would love to get your feedback and answer any questions!
Show HN: OnlyJPG – Client-Side PNG/HEIC/AVIF/PDF/etc to JPG
TL;DR: private, in-browser converter that turns pretty much any image file format into standard JPEGs. Everything runs locally. No uploads.<p>This started as a five-minute job and forty hours later...<p>I wanted to convert a HEIC without uploading it anywhere, so I wrestled Emscripten/WebAssembly to run Google's Jpegli inside a Web Worker. Now there's a small UI and it handles a bunch of formats.<p>Just about the only thing it can't decode is JXL - but there's still some JPEG XL magic in there: XYB perceptual color quantization is enabled by default via Jpegli.<p>The upside of all this over-engineering is privacy and compatibility: images are processed entirely on your machine and never touch a server; the output is a regular JPEG that works everywhere.<p>I could have used a CLI, sure — but where's the fun in that?<p>Would love feedback on edge cases and defaults.<p>Tested on Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.<p>Cheers!
Show HN: OnlyJPG – Client-Side PNG/HEIC/AVIF/PDF/etc to JPG
TL;DR: private, in-browser converter that turns pretty much any image file format into standard JPEGs. Everything runs locally. No uploads.<p>This started as a five-minute job and forty hours later...<p>I wanted to convert a HEIC without uploading it anywhere, so I wrestled Emscripten/WebAssembly to run Google's Jpegli inside a Web Worker. Now there's a small UI and it handles a bunch of formats.<p>Just about the only thing it can't decode is JXL - but there's still some JPEG XL magic in there: XYB perceptual color quantization is enabled by default via Jpegli.<p>The upside of all this over-engineering is privacy and compatibility: images are processed entirely on your machine and never touch a server; the output is a regular JPEG that works everywhere.<p>I could have used a CLI, sure — but where's the fun in that?<p>Would love feedback on edge cases and defaults.<p>Tested on Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.<p>Cheers!
Show HN: How Useless Are You? A brutally honest skills check
We built this to answer "am I a fit for this role?"<p>after noticing how hard it is to get honest feedback when applying to a YC startup or something else entirely.<p>It's a custom 5-minute challenge that roasts you after.<p>Added a leaderboard for those who want to see how they stack up.<p>Roast us below.
Show HN: We priced basic needs in work hours (global ranking and CSVs)