Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)

I’m working on moving beyond the LeetCode interview for software developers.

Most software engineering interviews are a “signal crisis”. They measure recall, not real-world engineering.

I’m working on moving the evaluation from “writing code under pressure” to technical judgment via structured code review.

https://entrevue.app/try

Ever since I read this https://paulbupejr.com/developing-the-optigap-sensor-system/ I’ve wanted to build a system that takes in a shape and adds bends and fiber routing so you can dynamically create readable objects. I was initially imagining wanting to add the bending points manually but I’m not so sure that’s the best practice and I may want to think of a heuristic for good vs bad bend points before even considering the UI.

I also bought some cheap gloves from harbor freight and used a needle to route fiber through each finger to make a simple power glove like thing which I think I can connect to arm arm to make a cool robot game. I think of the two I am more excited for the first but its much more work than the second and my day job is getting more exciting than I would like so by the end of the month I’ll have had to pick one to finish.

I am working on Cangjie Workbook. I am trying to create the best in class tool for learning Cangjie. It’s a Chinese input method based on decomposing characters into sub parts (not necessarily related to how they are written). It has a high learning curve, but it is a lot of fun to type with and helps you remember characters. It is a tool that I use myself. I already have a couple of users that have been giving me feedback. You can use a subset for free and without any login credentials. The complete product is available for a small monthly fee. Any feedback is welcome!

https://www.cangjieworkbook.com/

A new spec, TPX, which is meant to enable building SaaS where the user brings their own inference:

https://tokenpony.dev/

It has a few potentially interesting side effects:

– enterprises can plug their preferred LLM into the SaaS they use.

– self hosters can extend their rigs into the web.

– simple SaaS products can offer LLM integrations without their entire pricing model being upended by LLM hosting and infrastructure.

– we can all live like Ender in Xenocide and have a personal AI that has context on everything we are doing.

– have a no op provider for people who are anti llm.

Still working away on a completely offline meeting document generator that works on generic laptops with no GPU (https://whistle-enterprise.com). A new release coming very soon focusing on getting clearer audio which in turn makes the transcription and end document generated more accurate.

Inbetween that I’ve been working on a “software house” (don’t know how else to describe it). Pretty much codex/claude running on a VPS with a web interface and the ability to actually build and publish software / webapps etc.

It came from me sitting on the train on the way home and I had an idea pop into my head for a pebble watch app, I wanted to build it and test it there and then as I still had about 45 mins left. I know you can run codex against git repos in the cloud but I didn’t want to faff with that (and last I remember the allowances for this were much less generous). It’s been really fun, probably many things like this out there but it works exactly how I want it to. I plan to open source it once I’ve tidied things up a bit more.

An overhaul of my original PlayStation bare-metal programming tutorial repo: https://github.com/spicyjpeg/ps1-bare-metal

It was never really meant to be an SDK of sorts that other PS1 homebrew projects would pull as a submodule and depend on, but since it more or less became one I am likely going to split off the examples from the “core” (headers, CMake build scripts and tools). I have also been asked to add more examples, particularly on how to play sounds through the SPU and access the CD-ROM drive, and may cover I/O on some PS1-based arcade systems in the future.

emira, a tiling-scrolling WM for macOS: https://github.com/lightningboltemoji/emira

I know there are lots of options in this space, but I wanted to experiment with a new approach: a compositor overlay. During transitions (like scrolling on focus, moving a window, etc.) an overlay pops up and uses _screenshots_ of windows for animating while the real windows move below. Once in place, the cover dissolves out. It’s not perfect, but this makes it _feel_ much closer to native.

iI am working on a synth engine (music synthesizer) in Python and C++
not a developer; music producer, classical pianist, and occasional NI Reaktor programmer.

It creates sound from math expressions which were inspired by the Desmos graphing calculator.

The sounds are mainly of the FM/DX7 taste.

i can’t decide whether to show my progress on video by hiding or showing the expressions LLM(s) and myself “discovered”.

It sometimes sounds extremely musical and sometimes very dirty and experimental, what’s normal for frequency modulation.

Please help me decide: show all and open source or continue working on it and pitch it to some big names. 😉 I have the feeling it has strong potential for prototyping, as well as taking the role of a keyboard engine. It is completely viable to manipulation via AI because of its concept.

It runs nicely on an M4 Mac mini with 256 voices of polyphony and has a very high level of expressivity mainly via half-pedaling (sustain pedal).

Velocity, 8 macro knobs, no filters, no fx, ADSR envelope. A web interface and additionally CLI.

I made a site https://snack.game where people can upload and share multiplayer games.

It uses webtransport instead of websockets for the networking transport so the games feel a lot better than normal web based multiplayer games. I’m surprised more people aren’t using webtransport given it’s supported now by all major browsers.

I’m working on https://www.amika.dev/, which lets you put sandboxed agents on cloud VMs and then message them over the internet.

It’s for agent + human devboxes, for chatting with coding agents from the web, or automating them with an API. Thing like Claude Code web, but any agent and you directly control the VM, too.

We’re working to make amika.dev work on any computer, homelab, or K8S cluster. For tech folks, I describe it kinda like if Tailscale and Firecracker had a baby.

I’m working on Spacecap: https://github.com/mgerb/spacecap

It’s a screen recording tool for Linux. The goal is to make it as fast and efficient as possible, while also being simple to use and install. It’s just a hobby project that I am having fun working on. Here are some notable things about it:

– Written in Zig

– Uses Vulkan Video for encoding

– UI built with SDL3 and imgui

– Features recording, replay buffer, and screenshots

I’m working on a browser IDLE game made with Go. I’ve never touched Go before. The game core it’s 80% done and it was pretty easy to code but I have no idea what I’m doing in with the transport/http layer.

At this rate I’ll have it finished by the end of the next decade.

https://fiveql.com

I’ve been working on this for a while now. It creates a sort of AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md table for your database which holds all the joins, definitions, formats, and relationships, as well as what are popular criteria sets and combinations.

And it populates it into a bi-directional visual (round-trip) SQL editor. Make changes in the UI or SQL text, it goes both ways.

It’s a single HTML file.

Benchmarking public agent skills: Oh My ClaudeCode, Superpowers, Git Ship Done, (previously Get Shit Done), and the Karpathy ones against Swebench-Pro and SlopCodeBench. I have a July vs June breakdown. It’s been an interesting learning exercise and reveals the cost/performance impact of using these.

https://orcabot.com/benchmarks

A newspaper for kids. Printed on real newspaper and delivered monthly. Full of puzzles, math challenges, nature facts, science experiments, outdoor scavenger hunts, and even custom card/board games for families to play. https://thecuriositytimes.com/

Limiting screen time has been a primary goal in my household and has been going well. But I wanted something that would take my kids hours every month that

1. isn’t on a screen
2. educational
3. fun

https://httpstate.com // a super easy, batteries included, library and server to exchange small bits of data between apps

https://wafertown.com // the first LLMORPG, you write a prompt and your character “lives” through a simulation of life using it as a guide, interacts with others, etc. sends you a summary of what it did and allows you to steer it for next day. think of it as a small tamagotchi but with hundreds (hopefully thousands!) of other players

I am working on a discussion board for HN’s Who is hiring.

Too many times I have been burned by applying to scam listings or people who are just to self-promote and use people who want a job as a marketing channel (looking at you BetterStack, fu in particular).

I want people to be able to discuss and flag companies which are lying or just a waste of time, yet HN refuses to do anything about it and doesn’t allow threads as discussions and removes comments.

Hit me up if you want on the beta testers lists, already got a couple of people.

rocket.dev22@gmail.com