Posted by david927 10 hours ago
Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)
It's been really fun to build with. Agents can create parametric procedures so e.g. stick framing becomes a simple function call for the next agent, building a flywheel. There is full agent-human parity in every surface, so there is a human UI for the procedures too.
Every operation is yaml, so agents pick it up pretty quickly. Agents can also file feature requests when they reach for a tool that doesn't exist. You can export to 3d printing files, video walk-through, step files, get a BOM and a cut plan, view your project in life-size with AR. There is a notion-like interface for authoring build guides... a lot going on. If you're a woodworker/software engineer you might enjoy it.
You can add the MCP to your agent of choice, send a picture, description, sketch or whatever; say "build this with Sawdust"
I wanted to build a bed frame recently and imagined software where I could choose lumber from a list and visually assemble the bed frame in the software how I see fit, choose stains, flourishes - then go order the wood and have it cut. At that point it's like taking home an IKEA bed, except of way higher quality materials and to your exact design spec.
So
> Real SKUs, a real BOM you can send to any lumberyard; understand exactly what you need down to the last nail.
Is especially interesting, it sounds like you could basically do that with this software.
Turning the woodworking process into code to be automated by an LLM is pretty ambitious, and is the part I am most skeptical about. Of course, if you get that right (plus adoption) it would be unbelievably huge.
And you can customize it beyond the existing design by asking an agent to modify it, e.g. "let's use walnut 4x4s and 2x4 slats", "I don't like how the corners come together, can we make it more like traditional joinery?" Also, staining is a supported procedure (it's very useful for e.g. coloring geodesic dome struts by strut type), you can just ask the agent to stain the pieces with whichever color you like, I'm sure you could even use a named stain you want to use like "Minwax Dark Oak" and get something pretty close.
Impressive stuff. Actually more impressive than I even imagined.
“Fits in my SUV” you are a mad man! Love everything about this site. I might actually do it now haha - no more excuses.
I also suspect there’s a fairly finite number of sane join primitives, you can have rabbets, dados, dominos, dovetails, pocket screws, etc. These could be experimented with digitally against an existing design. And your tool availability could determine what you can do.
And of course cut order and assembly is just a DAG and can be generated from geometric constraints of the actual design.
Feel free to reach out! Email in profile.
This was all pre AI. Super impressive that you’ve made something awesome. I’ll try it out tonight
I keep seeing this word. Every time, I have to look it up; I marvel at the fact that we have such a cool word describing a complex but interesting topic; and apparently forget it again. And then I never find a situation where I can use it.
If this does what I think it does (and I confess I’m a goddamn idiot still when it comes to anything involving ‘agentic’) this is honestly pretty damn amazing.
I got depressed from my grievance with my abusive mother and started reading the compiler dragon book along with artificial intelligence by steve.
I've overcome about a dozen "there's simply no way to do this in MacOS and I have to abandon the project" challenges so far. MacOS really does not want to let you manage windows in this novel of a way, and I've had to come up with a handful of tricks to maintain the illusion that the WM is accessing the compositor at a lower level than it actually is. But it works, and I'm dogfooding it as I go!
I'm hopefully only a few weeks away now from a full announcement and a beta. If you're curious to try the first beta, feel free to get in touch at clayton at presteign dot com.
Try it out: https://github.com/preloopdev/preloop
https://www.idlequest.net/ - a from-scratch recreation of the 1999 MMORPG classic EverQuest, featuring a real-time MMO server written in Go, a 3D game browser-based client built with Babylon.js, and the clasic UI recreated using React. You can play it both as a regular MMORPG but also in "idle mode" where it basically plays itself. This had up to 70 players online at once a while back which was really cool, though its popularity is in a bit of a lull right now. There are still tons of bugs and stuff that isn't fully implemented (and balance issues) but it's still fun for most people who have nostalgia for it.
https://www.newyokosuka.com/ - an unofficial Shenmue MMO experience. Based on the 1999 Sega Dreamcast game Shenmue, it's playable entirely in your browser! It's basic world exploration with forklift shenanigans, some basic dialogue systems, and a basic combat system test, but I'm about to push an update that includes all cutscenes and story progression as well. The story part is taking a bit of time because I'm having to mold it to fit in an MMO context. But it's a fun project to work on and the Shenmue community loves it so far.
I've had people play IdleQuest on tablets and Steam Deck but I'm fairly certain it would be horrible on phones.
How is this not going to get sued into oblivion by Sega? Especially using your real name with it.
That being said, I tried it on Firefox and just got an empty blue screen after the level loaded.
A low-cost vibecoding website for non-developers. Still in alpha.
I used to be a mechanic, and spend a lot of my free time working on project vehicles, motorcycles, tractors, trucks etc. I wanted a tool to track the tasks I needed done, then a way to easily access VIN info for parts search, then I DMV records, and finally built an iphone app to scan the OBD2 diagnostic codes and hook them up to a custom ai diagnostic prompt.
It's been a blast to work on, I need to focus on marketing it and get some users that aren't close friends, but it's been serving my purposes this summer so far.
I've seen nothing with anywhere close to this depth of diagnostic reporting.
https://crewchief.cc https://apps.apple.com/us/app/crewchief-auto/id6760673109
Where it is make-specific is the interpretation layer. The code database includes manufacturer-specific DTCs for the 10 major makes, and there's per-model data down to the generation level — known failure patterns, which codes are common on which engines. So a P0171 on an E46 gets read in the context of "this generation eats intake boots and DISA valves," not a generic lean-code writeup. The AI report is conditioned on the exact year/make/model/engine, which is where most of the diagnostic depth comes from.
That being said, I'm continually expanding support, it really just depends on what sort of barriers I run into with these bluetooth scanners. For certain types of diagnostics (large truck / Buses etc) I'll likely need to make a separate desktop app that connects directly wired.
I was never much of a game developer, but recently my 5 year old son wanted to play a game so we decided to build one together.
It's a boat game, you basically steer a boat in an isometric 2d world, transporting passengers, cargo etc between ports.
As we designed it, the ideas just kept on coming. He made or directed a lot of the art inside of the game (even the audio), and we included friends and family as characters within the game.
A lot of fun to build - hilarious at times. I used Lua and LÖVE2D, building basically a game engine for an isometric world, so that took significantly more time than expected.
If you want to test it [1], please do, but keep in mind it's only in Norwegian, but I am sure most people would be able to figure it out as it's meant for age group 5 and up:
[1] https://apps.apple.com/no/app/b%C3%A5tspillet/id6791630382
At this point our entire extended family and their kids, grandchildren etc are actually playing this, so it's been super fun.
https://breaka.club/blog/why-were-building-clubs-for-kids
I also attempted to make a game with my eldest daughter initially. Unsurprisingly, she didn't want to sit there watching me code or drag things around in Godot's level editor.
Admittedly, I really need to make a new blog post showing the latest improvements brought about from the in school pilot I'm running weekly at the moment.
- it is a collection of ~ 2700 temples across India, with images sourced from wikipedia
- it shows you a random temple each time you visit
- it has a map view of temples across India
So this is just the tip of the iceberg. I am trying to build a catalogue of all temples, starting with India, and expanding on to the rest of the world. The focus is on temples originating from Indic religions like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
I have personally discovered many cool temples that I have never heard of, but I am struggling on how to gamify this. Feedback welcome!