Wednesday, 14 January 2026

Show HN: IMSAI/Altair inspired microcomputer with web emulator https://bit.ly/3Nn6tXd

Show HN: IMSAI/Altair inspired microcomputer with web emulator I designed and built a physical replica of a 1970s-style front panel microcomputer with 25+ toggle switches, 16 LEDs, and an LCD display. The brain is a Raspberry Pi Pico running an Intel 8080 CPU emulator. The main twist: I decided to see how far I could get using Claude Code for the firmware. That and the web emulator were written almost entirely using Claude Code (Opus 4.5). I've kept the full prompt history here: https://bit.ly/3NjenRu.... It was able to create the emulator in just a few prompts! It really surprised me that it was able to make a WebAssembly version from the same code (compiled with emscripten) and get the physical layout of the panel from a given photo. It also created some simple working examples using 8086 instructions! Repository: https://bit.ly/3NdJzBF https://bit.ly/3NhAOqd January 15, 2026 at 02:57AM

Show HN: Commosta – marketplace to share computing resources https://bit.ly/4bx3q8K

Show HN: Commosta – marketplace to share computing resources https://bit.ly/49nLOLl January 15, 2026 at 03:00AM

Show HN: Chklst – A Minimalist Checklist https://bit.ly/4qqmudE

Show HN: Chklst – A Minimalist Checklist Welp... I finally shipped. This is my first real project. I wanted a checklist app the way I wanted it so I built chklst. What’s different? Simple, drag & drop reordering, keyboard shortcuts, color labels. There’s a live demo on the landing page so you can try it without signing up. Free accounts can create 1 list. Premium is $5/month for up to 25 lists + shareable lists. What do you think? I built it with Next.js 16 + Turso/libSQL + Drizzle + Better Auth + Stripe. https://bit.ly/4qkOhvL Would love feedback on onboarding, UX, and pricing. Thanks everyone! https://bit.ly/4qkOhvL January 15, 2026 at 02:48AM

Tuesday, 13 January 2026

Show HN: Microwave – Native iOS app for videos on ATproto https://bit.ly/3LKyxTR

Show HN: Microwave – Native iOS app for videos on ATproto Hi HN — I built Microwave, a native iOS app for browsing and posting short-form videos, similar to TikTok, but implemented as a pure client on top of Bluesky / AT Protocol. There’s no custom backend: the app reads from and publishes to existing ATproto infrastructure. The goal was to explore whether a TikTok-like experience can exist as a thin client over an open social protocol, rather than a vertically integrated platform. Things I’d especially love feedback on: - Whether this kind of UX makes sense on top of ATproto - Client-only tradeoffs (ranking, discovery, moderation) - Protocol limitations I may be missing - Any architectural red flags TestFlight: https://apple.co/4aXJnAj https://apple.co/4aXJnAj January 13, 2026 at 06:14PM

Show HN: Vibe scrape with AI Web Agents, prompt => get data [video] https://bit.ly/4qem2Ps

Show HN: Vibe scrape with AI Web Agents, prompt => get data [video] Most of us have a list of URLs we need data from (government listings, local business info, pdf directories). Usually, that means hiring a freelancer or paying for an expensive, rigid SaaS. We built an AI Web Agent platform, rtrvr.ai to make "Vibe Scraping" a thing. How it works: 1. Upload a Google Sheet with your URLs. 2. Prompt: "Find the email, phone number, and their top 3 services." 3. Watch the AI agents open 50+ browsers at once and fill your sheet in real-time. It’s powered by a multi-agent system that can take actions, upload files, and crawl through paginations. Web Agent technology built from the ground up: End to End Agent: we built a resilient agentic harness with 20+ specialized sub-agents that transforms a single prompt into a complete end-to-end workflow. Turn any prompt into an end to end workflow, and on any site changes the agent adapts. Dom Intelligence: we perfected a DOM-only web agent approach that represents any webpage as semantic trees guaranteeing zero hallucinations and leveraging the underlying semantic reasoning capabilities of LLMs. Native Chrome APIs: we built a Chrome Extension to control cloud browsers that runs in the same process as the browser to avoid the bot detection and failure rates of CDP. We further solved the hard problems of interacting with the Shadow DOM and other DOM edge cases. Cost: We engineered the cost down to $10/mo but you can bring your own Gemini key and proxies to use for nearly FREE. Compare that to the $200+/mo some other lead gen tools like Clay charge. Use the free browser extension for login walled sites like LinkedIn locally, or the cloud platform for scale on the public web. We are thinking it can be a great upstream tool to your CRM to generate lists and enrich data. Curious to hear if this would make your lead generation, scraping, or automation easier or is it missing the mark? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggLDvZKuBlU January 14, 2026 at 01:30AM

Show HN: AsciiSketch a free browser-based ASCII art and diagram editor https://bit.ly/3LsKKwu

Show HN: AsciiSketch a free browser-based ASCII art and diagram editor https://bit.ly/4sFPHm8 January 13, 2026 at 11:39PM

Monday, 12 January 2026

Show HN: Modern Philosophy Course https://bit.ly/3LJFioW

Show HN: Modern Philosophy Course Fun module on Thales of Miletus—the beginning of philosophy https://bit.ly/4qUrveo January 13, 2026 at 01:09AM

Show HN: I built a tool to calculate the True Cost of Ownership (TCO) for yachts https://bit.ly/3ZbAaNq

Show HN: I built a tool to calculate the True Cost of Ownership (TCO) for yachts https://bit.ly/4pENiFP January 13, 2026 at 02:11AM

Show HN: Blockchain-Based Equity with Separated Economic and Governance Rights https://bit.ly/3Z7pob1

Show HN: Blockchain-Based Equity with Separated Economic and Governance Rights I've been researching blockchain-based capital markets and developed a framework for tokenized equity with separated economic, dividend, and governance rights. Core idea: Instead of bundling everything into one share, issue three token types: - LOBT: Economic participation, no governance - PST: Automated dividends, no ownership - OT: Full governance control Key challenge: Verifying real-world business operations on-chain without trusted intermediaries. I propose decentralized oracles + ZK proofs, but acknowledge significant unsolved problems. This is research/RFC seeking technical feedback on oracle architecture, regulatory viability, and which verticals this makes sense for. Thoughts? https://bit.ly/4pHIM9v January 13, 2026 at 01:33AM

Sunday, 11 January 2026

Show HN: Voice Composer – Browser-based pitch detection to MIDI/strudel/tidal https://bit.ly/4qRTtHC

Show HN: Voice Composer – Browser-based pitch detection to MIDI/strudel/tidal Built this over the weekend to bridge the gap between "can hum a melody" and "can code algorithmic music patterns" (Strudel/TidalCycles) for live coding and live dj'ing. What it does: Real-time pitch detection in browser using multiple algorithms: CREPE (deep learning model via TensorFlow.js) YIN (autocorrelation-based fundamental frequency estimation) FFT with harmonic product spectrum AMDF (average magnitude difference function) Outputs: visual piano roll, MIDI files, Strudel/TidalCycles code All client-side, nothing leaves your machine Why multiple algorithms: Different pitch detection approaches work better for different inputs. CREPE is most accurate but computationally expensive; YIN is fast and works well for clean monophonic input; FFT/HPS handles harmonic-rich sounds; AMDF is lightweight. Let users switch based on their use case. Technical details: React, runs entirely in browser via Web Audio API Canvas-based visualization with real-time waveform rendering The original problem: I wanted to learn live coding but had zero music theory. This makes it trivial to capture melodic ideas and immediately use them in pattern-based music systems. Try it: https://bit.ly/3YCk8vV Works best on desktop. Will work more like a Digital Audio Workbench (DAW). Source: https://bit.ly/3YzlR57 https://bit.ly/3YCk8vV January 12, 2026 at 12:06AM

Show HN: What if AI agents had Zodiac personalities? https://bit.ly/49s3MuM

Show HN: What if AI agents had Zodiac personalities? A fun game for playing moral dilemmas with friends. I gave 12 AI agents zodiac personalities (not that I believe in them) using the same LLM with different personality prompts. https://bit.ly/4bt1ONk January 12, 2026 at 12:49AM

Saturday, 10 January 2026

Show HN: Horizon Engine – C++20 3D FPS Game Engine with ECS and Modern Renderer https://bit.ly/49xd8W4

Show HN: Horizon Engine – C++20 3D FPS Game Engine with ECS and Modern Renderer Hi HN, I’m working on an experimental 3D FPS game engine in C++20, aiming to deeply understand engine internals from first principles rather than just using existing frameworks. Currently I'm strictly following LearnOpenGL docs. This project focuses on: Entity-Component-System (ECS) architecture for high performance. OpenGL 4.1 rendering with a PBR pipeline, material system, HDR, SSAO, and shadow mapping. Modular systems: input, physics (Jolt), audio (miniaudio), assets, hot reload. A sample FPS game & debug editor built into the repo. Repo: https://bit.ly/3Ltr5wc This isn’t intended to be a commercial rival to any commercial game engines. it’s a learning and exploration project: understanding why certain engine decisions are made, and how to build low-level engine systems from scratch. I’m especially looking for feedback on: Architecture choices (ECS design, render loop, module separation) Your thoughts on modern C++ engine patterns What you’d build vs stub early in a homemade engine Tips from experienced graphics/engine developers Criticism and suggestions are very welcome — it’s early days and meant to evolve. Thanks for checking it out! https://bit.ly/3Ltr5wc January 10, 2026 at 11:23PM

Show HN: Librario, a book metadata API that aggregates G Books, ISBNDB, and more https://bit.ly/49j7Te0

Show HN: Librario, a book metadata API that aggregates G Books, ISBNDB, and more TLDR: Librario is a book metadata API that aggregates data from Google Books, ISBNDB, and Hardcover into a single response, solving the problem of no single source having complete book information. It's currently pre-alpha, AGPL-licensed, and available to try now[0]. My wife and I have a personal library with around 1,800 books. I started working on a library management tool for us, but I quickly realized I needed a source of data for book information, and none of the solutions available provided all the data I needed. One might provide the series, the other might provide genres, and another might provide a good cover, but none provided everything. So I started working on Librario, a book metadata aggregation API written in Go. It fetches information about books from multiple sources (Google Books, ISBNDB, Hardcover. Working on Goodreads and Anna's Archive next.), merges everything, and saves it all to a PostgreSQL database for future lookups. The idea is that the database gets stronger over time as more books are queried. You can see an example response here[1], or try it yourself: curl -s -H 'Authorization: Bearer librario_ARbmrp1fjBpDywzhvrQcByA4sZ9pn7D5HEk0kmS34eqRcaujyt0enCZ' \ 'https://bit.ly/454p2pd' | jq . This is pre-alpha and runs on a small VPS, so keep that in mind. I never hit the limits in the third-party services, so depending on how this post goes, I’ll or will not find out if the code handles that well. The merger is the heart of the service, and figuring out how to combine conflicting data from different sources was the hardest part. In the end I decided to use field-specific strategies which are quite naive, but work for now. Each extractor has a priority, and results are sorted by that priority before merging. But priority alone isn't enough, so different fields need different treatment. For example: - Titles use a scoring system. I penalize titles containing parentheses or brackets because sources sometimes shove subtitles into the main title field. Overly long titles (80+ chars) also get penalized since they often contain edition information or other metadata that belongs elsewhere. - Covers collect all candidate URLs, then a separate fetcher downloads and scores them by dimensions and quality. The best one gets stored locally and served from the server. For most other fields (publisher, language, page count), I just take the first non-empty value by priority. Simple, but it works. Recently added a caching layer[2] which sped things up nicely. I considered migrating from net/http to fiber at some point[3], but decided against it. Going outside the standard library felt wrong, and the migration didn't provide much in the end. The database layer is being rewritten before v1.0[4]. I'll be honest: the original schema was written by AI, and while I tried to guide it in the right direction with SQLC[5] and good documentation, database design isn't my strong suit and I couldn't confidently vouch for the code. Rather than ship something I don't fully understand, I hired the developers from SourceHut[6] to rewrite it properly. I've got a 5-month-old and we're still adjusting to their schedule, so development is slow. I've mentioned this project in a few HN threads before[7], so I’m pretty happy to finally have something people can try. Code is AGPL and on SourceHut[8]. Feedback and patches[9] are very welcome :) [0]: https://bit.ly/3LtSRsC [1]: https://bit.ly/4btRHI1... [2]: https://bit.ly/4jDyAxp [3]: https://bit.ly/4qgj90J [4]: https://bit.ly/4jyI2lz [5]: https://bit.ly/49ZPPSU [6]: https://bit.ly/4qN49Ho [7]: https://bit.ly/49m1NYM [8]: https://bit.ly/3LtSRsC [9]: https://bit.ly/455EzoN... January 11, 2026 at 12:45AM

Show HN: Symfreq – Analyse symbol frequencies in code (Rust) https://bit.ly/49KkIhr

Show HN: Symfreq – Analyse symbol frequencies in code (Rust) https://bit.ly/3L9Dgyp January 10, 2026 at 11:55PM

Friday, 9 January 2026

Show HN: Yellopages – New tab Chrome extension https://bit.ly/4jys6zC

Show HN: Yellopages – New tab Chrome extension Hey all- I just released a New tab replacement Chrome extension that makes browsing a lot easier - it also solves many of the annoyances with browser tabs. It's called Yellopages and it's free. Hope you'll give it a try. * Groups all tabs from same domain. Makes it simple to kill all your Gmail tabs in one click (or keep just one). * Groups all tabs playing audio. Toggle the sound for each one. * Single text search for open tabs, bookmarks, and browsing history. * Groups all tabs with new notifications (e.g. emails, likes, posts, replies, etc.) * One click to kill all tabs (e.g. you're sharing screen in Zoom). A second click brings them all back. I'm a solo web developer and I'm hoping to build an audience with my work. More at: https://bit.ly/49uCrYK https://bit.ly/4julNgw January 8, 2026 at 11:44PM

Show HN: Senior Developer Playbook https://bit.ly/4jSg4BH

Show HN: Senior Developer Playbook I wrote a short playbook capturing behaviors I’ve seen in consistently effective developers. Posting it here in case it’s useful. Curious what others agree or disagree with. https://bit.ly/4sxBRlX January 10, 2026 at 12:57AM

Thursday, 8 January 2026

Show HN: Layoffstoday – Open database tracking for 10k Companies https://bit.ly/3LDCpGa

Show HN: Layoffstoday – Open database tracking for 10k Companies Hi HN, I built Layoffstoday, an open platform that tracks tech layoffs across ~6,500 companies. What it does: Aggregates layoff events from public news sources Normalizes data by company, date, industry, and affected headcount Shows historical patterns instead of isolated headlines Why I built it: During job transitions, I noticed people had to jump across news articles, spreadsheets, and social posts just to answer simple questions like “Has this company laid people off before?” or “Is this happening across the industry?” This is an attempt to make that information structured, searchable, and accessible. Would love feedback on: Data accuracy / gaps Signals that would actually help job seekers Whether alerts or trend indicators are useful or noisy https://bit.ly/4pzxgNx January 9, 2026 at 04:39AM

Show HN: Claude Code for Django https://bit.ly/3Luogel

Show HN: Claude Code for Django Chris Wiles showcased his setup for Claude Code and I thought it was sick. So I adapted it for Django projects. Several skills have been added to address the pain points in Django development. https://bit.ly/49yGXpp January 9, 2026 at 03:37AM

Show HN: Executable Markdown files with Unix pipes https://bit.ly/4bmpLWv

Show HN: Executable Markdown files with Unix pipes I wanted to run markdown files like shell scripts. So I built an open source tool that lets you use a shebang to pipe them through Claude Code with full stdin/stdout support. task.md: #!/usr/bin/env claude-run Analyze this codebase and summarize the architecture. Then: chmod +x task.md ./task.md These aren't just prompts. Claude Code has tool use, so a markdown file can run shell commands, write scripts, read files, make API calls. The prompt orchestrates everything. A script that runs your tests and reports results (`run_tests.md`): #!/usr/bin/env claude-run --permission-mode bypassPermissions Run ./test/run_tests.sh and summarize what passed and failed. Because stdin/stdout work like any Unix program, you can chain them: cat data.json | ./analyze.md > results.txt git log -10 | ./summarize.md ./generate.md | ./review.md > final.txt Or mix them with traditional shell scripts: for f in logs/\*.txt; do cat "$f" | ./analyze.md >> summary.txt done This replaced a lot of Python glue code for us. Tasks that needed LLM orchestration libraries are now markdown files composed with standard Unix tools. Composable as building blocks, runnable as cron jobs, etc. One thing we didn't expect is that these are more auditable (and shareable) than shell scripts. Install scripts like `curl -fsSL https://bit.ly/49foHT7 | bash` could become: `curl -fsSL https://bit.ly/4ssZWKN | claude-run` Where install.md says something like "Detect my OS and architecture, download the right binary from GitHub releases, extract to ~/.local/bin, update my shell config." A normal human can actually read and verify that. The (really cool) executable markdown idea and auditability examples are from Pete Koomen (@koomen on X). As Pete says: "Markdown feels increasingly important in a way I'm not sure most people have wrapped their heads around yet." We implemented it and added Unix pipe semantics. Currently works with Claude Code - hoping to support other AI coding tools too. You can also route scripts through different cloud providers (AWS Bedrock, etc.) if you want separate billing for automated jobs. GitHub: https://bit.ly/4qP9UEG What workflows would you use this for? January 9, 2026 at 03:29AM

Show HN: Legit, Open source Git-based Version control for AI agents https://bit.ly/45JyluK

Show HN: Legit, Open source Git-based Version control for AI agents Hi HN, Martin, Nils, and Jannes here. We are building Legit, an open source version control and collaboration layer for AI agents and AI native applications. You can find the repo here https://bit.ly/3LacBBw and the website here https://bit.ly/49yaAat Over the last years, we worked on multiple developer tools and AI driven products. As soon as we started letting agents modify real files and business critical data, one problem kept showing up. We could not reliably answer what changed, why it changed, or how to safely undo it. Today, most AI tools either run without real guardrails or store their state in proprietary databases that are hard to inspect, audit, or migrate. Once agents start collaborating on shared data, you are often just crossing your fingers and hoping nothing goes wrong. We noticed something interesting. Developers do not have this problem when collaborating on code, and agent like workflows took off there first. The reason is relatively simple. Git already solves coordination, history, review, and rollback. That insight led us to build Legit. We bring Git style versioning and collaboration to AI applications and to most file formats. Every change an agent makes is tracked. Every action is inspectable, reviewable, and reversible. No hidden state. No black box history. Legit works as a lightweight SDK that AI apps can embed anywhere the filesystem works. It handles versioning, Sync, rollback, and access control for agens. Everything lives in a repository that you can host yourself or on any Git hosting provider you already trust. We believe the right way to scale AI collaboration is not to hide what agents do, but to let developers and users see, review, and control every change. Legit is our attempt to bring the discipline, visibility, and safety of modern developer workflows to write enabled AI applications. Give it a spin: https://bit.ly/3LacBBw and let us know your feedback, criticism, and thoughts. January 9, 2026 at 01:20AM