The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past week
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Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back
Quick background: I used to code. Studied it in school, wrote some projects, but eventually convinced myself I wasn't cut out for it. Too slow, too many bugs, imposter syndrome — the usual story. So I pivoted, ended up as an investment associate at an early-stage angel fund, and haven't written real code in years.<p>Fast forward to now. I'm a Buffett nerd — big believer in compound interest as a mental model for life. I run compound interest calculations constantly. Not because I need to, but because watching numbers grow over 30-40 years keeps me patient when markets get wild. It's basically meditation for long-term investors.<p>The problem? Every compound interest calculator online is terrible. Ugly interfaces, ads covering half the screen, can't customize compounding frequency properly, no year-by-year breakdowns. I've tried so many. They all suck.<p>When vibe coding started blowing up, something clicked. Maybe I could actually build the calculators I wanted? I don't have to be a "real developer" anymore — I just need to describe what I want clearly.<p>So I tried it.<p>Two weeks and ~$100（Opus 4.5 thinking model） in API costs later: I somehow have 60+ calculators. Started with compound interest, naturally. Then thought "well, while I'm here..." and added mortgage, loan amortization, savings goals, retirement projections. Then it spiraled — BMI calculator, timezone converter, regex tester. Oops.<p>The AI (I'm using Claude via Windsurf) handled the grunt work beautifully. I'd describe exactly what I wanted — "compound interest calculator with monthly/quarterly/yearly options, year-by-year breakdown table, recurring contribution support" — and it delivered. With validation, nice components, even tests.<p>What I realized: my years away from coding weren't wasted. I still understood architecture, I still knew what good UX looked like, I still had domain expertise (financial math). I just couldn't type it all out efficiently. AI filled that gap perfectly.<p>Vibe coding didn't make me a 10x engineer. But it gave me permission to build again. Ideas I've had for years suddenly feel achievable. That's honestly the bigger win for me.<p>Stack: Next.js, React, TailwindCSS, shadcn/ui, four languages (EN/DE/FR/JA). The AI picked most of this when I said "modern and clean."<p>Site's live at <a href="https://calquio.com" rel="nofollow">https://calquio.com</a> . The compound interest calculator is still my favorite page — finally exactly what I wanted.<p>Curious if others have similar stories. Anyone else come back to building after stepping away?
Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss
Hey HN – I built Dock after years of team chat frustrations as a founder.
Free forever for teams up to 5. Unlimited search, unlimited history. No "upgrade to see messages older than 90 days" nonsense.
Built for teams who work both async and sync/real-time when it matters. runs on SOC 2 infra, compliant, secure and in-transit and at-rest encryption, runs on Cloudflare.<p>Early stage – would love feedback from anyone who's felt the same pain.
Show HN: Dock – Slack minus the bloat, tax, and 90-day memory loss
Hey HN – I built Dock after years of team chat frustrations as a founder.
Free forever for teams up to 5. Unlimited search, unlimited history. No "upgrade to see messages older than 90 days" nonsense.
Built for teams who work both async and sync/real-time when it matters. runs on SOC 2 infra, compliant, secure and in-transit and at-rest encryption, runs on Cloudflare.<p>Early stage – would love feedback from anyone who's felt the same pain.
Show HN: OpenWork – An open-source alternative to Claude Cowork
hi hn,<p>i built openwork, an open-source, local-first system inspired by claude cowork.<p>it’s a native desktop app that runs on top of opencode (opencode.ai).
it’s basically an alternative gui for opencode, which (at least until now) has been more focused on technical folks.<p>the original seed for openwork was simple: i have a home server, and i wanted my wife and i to be able to run privileged workflows. things like controlling home assistant, or deploying custom web apps (e.g. our customs recipe app recipes.benjaminshafii.com), legal torrents, without living in a terminal.<p>our initial setup was running the opencode web server directly and sharing credentials to it. that worked, but i found the web ui unreliable and very unfriendly for non-technical users.<p>the goal with openwork is to bring the kind of workflows i’m used to running in the cli into a gui, while keeping a very deep extensibility mindset. ideally this grows into something closer to an obsidian-style ecosystem, but for agentic work.<p>some core principles i had in mind:<p>- open by design: no black boxes, no hosted lock-in. everything runs locally or on your own servers. (models don’t run locally yet, but both opencode and openwork are built with that future in mind.)
- hyper extensible: skills are installable modules via a skill/package manager, using the native opencode plugin ecosystem.
- non-technical by default: plans, progress, permissions, and artifacts are surfaced in the ui, not buried in logs.<p>you can already try it:
- there’s an unsigned dmg
- or you can clone the repo, install deps, and if you already have opencode running it should work right away<p>it’s very alpha, lots of rough edges. i’d love feedback on what feels the roughest or most confusing.<p>happy to answer questions.
Show HN: WebTiles – create a tiny 250x250 website with neighbors around you
There is a large grid of 250x250 tiles, on which you are be able to create a tiny website, contained into the tile.
You can basically consider the tile as a mini version of your website, showcasing what your full site has (but it can be anything). You are able to link to your full site, and use any HTML/CSS/JS inside. The purpose is to create beautiful and interesting tiles, that could be used for exploring the indie-web in an easy and interesting way.
Show HN: OSS AI agent that indexes and searches the Epstein files
Hi HN,<p>I built an open-source AI agent that has already indexed and can search the entire Epstein files, roughly 100M words of publicly released documents.<p>The goal was simple: make a large, messy corpus of PDFs and text files immediately searchable in a precise way, without relying on keyword search or bloated prompts.<p>What it does:<p>- The full dataset is already indexed
- You can ask natural language questions
- Answers are grounded and include direct references to source documents
- Supports both exact text lookup and semantic search<p>Discussion around these files is often fragmented. This makes it possible to explore the primary sources directly and verify claims without manually digging through thousands of pages.<p>Happy to answer questions or go into technical details.<p>Code: <a href="https://github.com/nozomio-labs/nia-epstein-ai" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/nozomio-labs/nia-epstein-ai</a>
Show HN: Self-host Reddit – 2.38B posts, works offline, yours forever
Reddit's API is effectively dead for archival. Third-party apps are gone. Reddit has threatened to cut off access to the Pushshift dataset multiple times. But 3.28TB of Reddit history exists as a torrent right now, and I built a tool to turn it into something you can browse on your own hardware.<p>The key point: This doesn't touch Reddit's servers. Ever. Download the Pushshift dataset, run my tool locally, get a fully browsable archive. Works on an air-gapped machine. Works on a Raspberry Pi serving your LAN. Works on a USB drive you hand to someone.<p>What it does: Takes compressed data dumps from Reddit (.zst), Voat (SQL), and Ruqqus (.7z) and generates static HTML. No JavaScript, no external requests, no tracking. Open index.html and browse. Want search? Run the optional Docker stack with PostgreSQL – still entirely on your machine.<p>API & AI Integration: Full REST API with 30+ endpoints – posts, comments, users, subreddits, full-text search, aggregations. Also ships with an MCP server (29 tools) so you can query your archive directly from AI tools.<p>Self-hosting options:
- USB drive / local folder (just open the HTML files)
- Home server on your LAN
- Tor hidden service (2 commands, no port forwarding needed)
- VPS with HTTPS
- GitHub Pages for small archives<p>Why this matters: Once you have the data, you own it. No API keys, no rate limits, no ToS changes can take it away.<p>Scale: Tens of millions of posts per instance. PostgreSQL backend keeps memory constant regardless of dataset size. For the full 2.38B post dataset, run multiple instances by topic.<p>How I built it: Python, PostgreSQL, Jinja2 templates, Docker. Used Claude Code throughout as an experiment in AI-assisted development. Learned that the workflow is "trust but verify" – it accelerates the boring parts but you still own the architecture.<p>Live demo: <a href="https://online-archives.github.io/redd-archiver-example/" rel="nofollow">https://online-archives.github.io/redd-archiver-example/</a><p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver</a> (Public Domain)<p>Pushshift torrent: <a href="https://academictorrents.com/details/1614740ac8c94505e4ecb9d88be8bed7b6afddd4" rel="nofollow">https://academictorrents.com/details/1614740ac8c94505e4ecb9d...</a>
Show HN: AI in SolidWorks
Hey HN! We’re Will and Jorge, and we’ve built LAD (Language-Aided Design), a SolidWorks add-in that uses LLMs to create sketches, features, assemblies, and macros from conversational inputs (<a href="https://www.trylad.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.trylad.com/</a>).<p>We come from software engineering backgrounds where tools like Claude Code and Cursor have come to dominate, but when poking around CAD systems a few months back we realized there's no way to go from a text prompt input to a modeling output in any of the major CAD systems. In our testing, the LLMs aren't as good at making 3D objects as they are are writing code, but we think they'll get a lot better in the upcoming months and years.<p>To bridge this gap, we've created LAD, an add-in in SolidWorks to turn conversational input and uploaded documents/images into parts, assemblies, and macros. It includes:<p>- Dozens of tools the LLM can call to create sketches, features, and other objects in parts.<p>- Assembly tools the LLM can call to turn parts into assemblies.<p>- File system tools the LLM can use to create, save, search, and read SolidWorks files and documentation.<p>- Macro writing/running tools plus a SolidWorks API documentation search so the LLM can use macros.<p>- Automatic screenshots and feature tree parsing to provide the LLM context on the current state.<p>- Checkpointing to roll back unwanted edits and permissioning to determine which commands wait for user permission.<p>You can try LAD at <a href="https://www.trylad.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.trylad.com/</a> and let us know what features would make it more useful for your work. To be honest, the LLMs aren't great at CAD right now, but we're mostly curious to hear if people would want and use this if it worked well.
Show HN: Ferrite – Markdown editor in Rust with native Mermaid diagram rendering
Ferrite: Fast Markdown/Text/Code editor in Rust with native Mermaid diagrams<p>Built a Markdown editor using Rust + egui. v0.2.1 just dropped with major Mermaid improvements:<p>→ Native Mermaid diagrams - Flowcharts, sequence, state, ER, git graphs - pure Rust, no JS<p>→ Split view - Raw + rendered side-by-side with sync scrolling<p>→ Syntax highlighting - 40+ languages with large file optimization<p>→ JSON/YAML/TOML tree viewer - Structured editing with expand/collapse<p>→ Git integration - File tree shows modified/staged/untracked status<p>Also: minimap, zen mode, auto-save, session restore, code folding indicators.<p>~15MB binary, instant startup. Windows/Linux/macOS.<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/OlaProeis/Ferrite" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/OlaProeis/Ferrite</a><p>v0.2.2 coming soon with performance improvements for large files. Looking for feedback!
Show HN: Ferrite – Markdown editor in Rust with native Mermaid diagram rendering
Ferrite: Fast Markdown/Text/Code editor in Rust with native Mermaid diagrams<p>Built a Markdown editor using Rust + egui. v0.2.1 just dropped with major Mermaid improvements:<p>→ Native Mermaid diagrams - Flowcharts, sequence, state, ER, git graphs - pure Rust, no JS<p>→ Split view - Raw + rendered side-by-side with sync scrolling<p>→ Syntax highlighting - 40+ languages with large file optimization<p>→ JSON/YAML/TOML tree viewer - Structured editing with expand/collapse<p>→ Git integration - File tree shows modified/staged/untracked status<p>Also: minimap, zen mode, auto-save, session restore, code folding indicators.<p>~15MB binary, instant startup. Windows/Linux/macOS.<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/OlaProeis/Ferrite" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/OlaProeis/Ferrite</a><p>v0.2.2 coming soon with performance improvements for large files. Looking for feedback!
Show HN: I used Claude Code to discover connections between 100 books
I think LLMs are overused to summarise and underused to help us read deeper.<p>I built a system for Claude Code to browse 100 non-fiction books and find interesting connections between them.<p>I started out with a pipeline in stages, chaining together LLM calls to build up a context of the library.
I was mainly getting back the insight that I was baking into the prompts, and the results weren't particularly surprising.<p>On a whim, I gave CC access to my debug CLI tools and found that it wiped the floor with that approach.
It gave actually interesting results and required very little orchestration in comparison.<p>One of my favourite trail of excerpts goes from Jobs’ reality distortion field to Theranos’ fake demos, to Thiel on startup cults, to Hoffer on mass movement charlatans (<a href="https://trails.pieterma.es/trail/useful-lies/" rel="nofollow">https://trails.pieterma.es/trail/useful-lies/</a>).
A fun tendency is that Claude kept getting distracted by topics of secrecy, conspiracy, and hidden systems - as if the task itself summoned a Foucault’s Pendulum mindset.<p>Details:<p>* The books are picked from HN’s favourites (which I collected before: <a href="https://hnbooks.pieterma.es/" rel="nofollow">https://hnbooks.pieterma.es/</a>).<p>* Chunks are indexed by topic using Gemini Flash Lite. The whole library cost about £10.<p>* Topics are organised into a tree structure using recursive Leiden partitioning and LLM labels. This gives a high-level sense of the themes.<p>* There are several ways to browse. The most useful are embedding similarity, topic tree siblings, and topics cooccurring within a chunk window.<p>* Everything is stored in SQLite and manipulated using a set of CLI tools.<p>I wrote more about the process here: <a href="https://pieterma.es/syntopic-reading-claude/" rel="nofollow">https://pieterma.es/syntopic-reading-claude/</a><p>I’m curious if this way of reading resonates for anyone else - LLM-mediated or not.
Show HN: I used Claude Code to discover connections between 100 books
I think LLMs are overused to summarise and underused to help us read deeper.<p>I built a system for Claude Code to browse 100 non-fiction books and find interesting connections between them.<p>I started out with a pipeline in stages, chaining together LLM calls to build up a context of the library.
I was mainly getting back the insight that I was baking into the prompts, and the results weren't particularly surprising.<p>On a whim, I gave CC access to my debug CLI tools and found that it wiped the floor with that approach.
It gave actually interesting results and required very little orchestration in comparison.<p>One of my favourite trail of excerpts goes from Jobs’ reality distortion field to Theranos’ fake demos, to Thiel on startup cults, to Hoffer on mass movement charlatans (<a href="https://trails.pieterma.es/trail/useful-lies/" rel="nofollow">https://trails.pieterma.es/trail/useful-lies/</a>).
A fun tendency is that Claude kept getting distracted by topics of secrecy, conspiracy, and hidden systems - as if the task itself summoned a Foucault’s Pendulum mindset.<p>Details:<p>* The books are picked from HN’s favourites (which I collected before: <a href="https://hnbooks.pieterma.es/" rel="nofollow">https://hnbooks.pieterma.es/</a>).<p>* Chunks are indexed by topic using Gemini Flash Lite. The whole library cost about £10.<p>* Topics are organised into a tree structure using recursive Leiden partitioning and LLM labels. This gives a high-level sense of the themes.<p>* There are several ways to browse. The most useful are embedding similarity, topic tree siblings, and topics cooccurring within a chunk window.<p>* Everything is stored in SQLite and manipulated using a set of CLI tools.<p>I wrote more about the process here: <a href="https://pieterma.es/syntopic-reading-claude/" rel="nofollow">https://pieterma.es/syntopic-reading-claude/</a><p>I’m curious if this way of reading resonates for anyone else - LLM-mediated or not.
Show HN: Scroll Wikipedia like TikTok
Hey - I've been playing with LLMs since GPT-2 and recently experimented with fully generative UIs where the HTML/Canvas are generated just-in-time.<p>Every post on the feed( on slop/duck/storytime) you see is streamed and generated just-in-time with HTML and into a Canvas with Gemini 3 Flash.<p>Comments and DMs are bidirectionally linked with a Cloudflare Workers Durable Object which is why they feel so fast. Every generated post is saved into a DO SQLite which is then served into the "Following" feed so it can be served quicker.<p>This was inspired by Wikitok, a VSCode Extension I made around brainrot, and another fully generative UI site I made.
Show HN: I made a memory game to teach you to play piano by ear
Show HN: Prism.Tools – Free and privacy-focused developer utilities
Hi HN, I'm Barry and I've built Prism.Tools (<a href="https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/" rel="nofollow">https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/</a>) – a collection of client-side developer utilities that respect your privacy.<p>Many of these tools were used way back in the days when I ran a BBS and started my communities first ISP, serving three local communities with Dial-Up Internet, Web Hosting etc. The tools have been refined to reflect the changes in tech since then and designed for the Novice and Pro alike. As I locate more tools others may find useful I will refine and add them to the collection. Use them, Share them, or not. They will be here if you need them...<p>40+ dev tools (JSON formatters, regex tester, base64 encoder, Git command helper, etc.) that run entirely in your browser.
Zero tracking, zero analytics, zero data collection – everything processes locally.
Self-contained HTML files with no build process or frameworks.<p>I realized I had a lot of tools/utilities I've built over the years for my own use. I lothe having to 'sign-up' just to access/use simple utilities that I can create myself. I've refined them and put them in one safe place so I could easily access them if/when needed. I decided to make them available via Github Pages for anyone that may find them useful. Prism.Tools is the result.<p>Each tool is a standalone HTML file with embedded CSS and JavaScript. No frameworks, no npm packages, no build steps – just open the file and it works.<p>The entire toolset:<p>- 100% client-side processing – your data never leaves your browser.<p>- No external dependencies except for specific libraries from cdnjs.cloudflare.com (marked.js for markdown, exifr for image metadata, etc.)<p>- Consistent dark UI – every tool follows the same design language for familiarity.<p>- Vanilla JS where possible – only reaching for Public CDN Resources when necessary.<p>The constraint of "single HTML file" was intentional. It forces simplicity and ensures tools remain maintainable. It also means users can inspect, modify, or self-host any tool trivially.<p>These tools have helped me with debugging production issues, Quick formatting tasks, learning Git commands (the Git command helper has been particularly helpful)<p>Just visit <a href="https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/" rel="nofollow">https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/</a> and try any tool. No signup, no install.<p>What tools are missing that you find yourself needing?
Any performance issues with specific tools?
UI/UX friction points?<p>All tools follow the same privacy-first philosophy...
Your data stays in your browser. No accounts, no tracking, no servers processing your information.
The project is also a demonstration that you don't always need React, Vue, or complex build pipelines – sometimes vanilla JavaScript in a single HTML file is exactly the right tool for the job.<p>Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+)
CSS3 with CSS Grid
Minimal external libraries: marked.js, exifr, highlight.js, sql-formatter (all from CDN)
No frameworks, no bundlers, no npm
Hosted on Github Pages<p>Happy to answer questions about the technical implementation, design decisions, or specific tools!<p>All tools are inspectable – just view source on any page to see exactly how they work!
Show HN: Tailsnitch – A security auditor for Tailscale
Show HN: DoNotNotify – Log and intelligently block notifications on Android
Why - I got sick of apps abusing notifications on my Android phone. While the OS does give you the ability to switch off notifications based on channels, most apps either don't use it or abuse it intentionally. In my case, I live in a gated society that uses an app called MyGate to allow visitors, and the app intentionally pushes ads through the same channels since you cannot block them.<p>What - DoNotNotify is an app that logs all incoming notifications, and displays them grouped by app. It also captures the action behind the notification, which can be triggered from the app itself. From this log, you can create rules to whitelist/blacklist notifications from apps depending on their notification content. These filters can even be regex expressions, which allows for more complicated use-cases. The app ships with some pre-defined rules for popular apps like Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, Netflix, TikTok, Reddit etc.<p>Where - The website is at <a href="https://donotnotify.com/" rel="nofollow">https://donotnotify.com/</a>.<p>Would also like to call out that the app runs purely on your device, never communicates with anything on the Internet, and only requires notifications access to work. It is completely free, and there is no advertising or hidden gotchas.
Show HN: An interactive guide to how browsers work
Show HN: Terminal UI for AWS
Show HN: Terminal UI for AWS