Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall Themes

  • Thread is dominated by personal projects, most bootstrapped and often built “for myself first”.
  • Heavy use of LLMs/agents for both building and powering products, but with a visible counter‑current of local‑first, offline, and non‑AI tools.
  • Many projects aim to tame complexity: of AI code output, cloud infra, compliance, personal data, and day‑to‑day life.

AI, Agents & Developer Workflow

  • Numerous “AI coding agent” projects: IDEs that run and fix code end‑to‑end, terminal harnesses, agent orchestrators, and tools that review or benchmark agent output.
  • Strong focus on agent safety and control: sandboxes for terminals and filesystems, MCP servers, “agent OS” layers, and runtime security/observability for agents.
  • RAG and knowledge tools: co‑wikis, long‑term memory systems, deterministic summarizers, and domain‑specific AI tutors (coding, medicine, languages).
  • Some skepticism about AI slop and over‑hype, driving tools for “proof of human work” and human‑authored writing verification.

Developer & Infra Tooling

  • Many small, focused dev tools: backup/sync wrappers, Git helpers, code search, JSON/SQL utilities, CLI inboxes, telemetry visualizers, and workflow engines.
  • Infra projects include: lightweight microVMs, container control planes, Postgres‑native search, protocol libraries, GitHub config drift detectors, and high‑performance LLM inference experiments.
  • Several projects explicitly target the pain of modern CI/CD, monitoring, and compliance (site security scoring, DMARC, uptime, regulated industries).

Local‑First, Privacy & Self‑Hosted

  • Strong interest in offline or self‑hosted apps: translators, photo and music managers, Notion‑like knowledge bases, CAD, finance, CRMs, media servers, and static site frameworks.
  • Emphasis on: no accounts, no tracking, encrypted backups, on‑device ML, and EU data‑residency.

Consumer, Productivity & Education Apps

  • Niche tools: wake‑up‑call VOIP app, grocery planners, roast timers, study engines, sobriety and screen‑time companions, habit trackers, skincare routine sharing, parental safety.
  • Education‑oriented: language learning games, debate/writing scoring platforms, Latin and NLP study pipelines, exam and board‑prep tools, homeschooling resources.

Games & Creative Experiments

  • Many indie games and engines: card and board games, roguelikes, voxel worlds, simulations, puzzles, daily word/logic games, and game dev tooling.
  • Creative tech: generative art photo apps, 3D visualizations, music and animation languages, interactive math/physics demos.

Hardware, Robotics & Physical World

  • Projects span quantum photonics experiments, USB‑PD analyzers, safer batteries, home care sensors, LPFM radio, robotics control, and EV charging tools.
  • Some aim explicitly at safety (elderly fall detection, fireproof batteries, martial arts gym management).

Work, Market & Motivation

  • Multiple posts reflect on burnout, difficulty finding jobs (especially early‑career), and desire to move toward more tactile or artistic work.
  • Others describe using side projects, writing, and open source as a way to stay motivated and learn, often powered by AI‑augmented development.