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

Hacker News Discussion ↗

Hundreds of builders share what they’re creating in July 2026, from AI-powered coding agents, note-taking tools, and dev infra to retro games, health dashboards, and personal finance apps. A recurring pattern is pairing LLMs with traditional software—either to accelerate development (agents, MCP tools, local-first harnesses) or to add “smart” layers to existing workflows in education, legal, HR, security, and creative tools. Alongside commercial SaaS and open source projects, many posts highlight highly personal efforts—fitness trackers, learning tools, hobby games, and civic data projects—showing how accessible AI-assisted coding has widened the range and ambition of individual side projects.

Overall patterns

  • Very broad mix of projects: AI/agent tooling, dev infrastructure, indie SaaS, games, education, mapping, finance, and hardware.
  • Many builders are scratching their own itch (wedding planners, hobby dashboards, small-business tools, personal IDEs, etc.) and then turning them into products.
  • Several people explicitly mention using LLMs or agents to revive old side projects, finish long-stalled ideas, or work around limited time/energy.

AI, Agents & LLM-Focused Tools

  • Strong cluster around “agentic coding”: harnesses for Claude/Codex, MCP servers, governance layers, sandboxes/VMs for agents, agent orchestrators, and monitoring/telemetry.
  • Tools to embed agents into SaaS or desktop apps, give them persistent memory, artifacts, or better browser visibility.
  • Domain-specific agents: legal IDEs, scientific research agents, QA/testing agents, real-estate search, customer support, spam filtering for email, recruiting filters, and internal dev tools.
  • Emphasis on privacy-preserving/local-first AI: on-device models, no-cloud logging, local journals, and desktop-only assistants.

Dev Infrastructure, Security & Ops

  • New sync engines, CRDT-based systems, local-first knowledge graphs, and Postgres-based foundations for apps.
  • Infra for microVMs, container/VM hybrids, immutable OSes, and self-hosting platforms for app deployment.
  • Security-focused tools: MCP server risk scoring, package manager guards, supply-chain firewalls, test selectors that self-heal, apt caching against repo outages, and OSQuery managers.
  • Site search and documentation generators with verification and AI augmentation.

Consumer Apps, Games & Creative Tools

  • Many games: retro arcade remakes, MMO-like RPGs, fitness-based RPGs, trials and racing sims, word and puzzle games, visual sandboxes, and VR/AR data tools.
  • Lifestyle products: budgeting/finance apps, wishlist and booking tools, photo and file organizers with semantic search, eSIM services, wedding seating planners, map-based travel planners, and social/news aggregators.
  • Creative tooling: music formats, photo editors, interactive fiction platforms, web-based font proofing, component libraries, and procedural audio.

Education, Health & Personal Improvement

  • Study tools using spaced repetition, RAG, and automated question generation.
  • Language learning apps (Cangjie, Spanish and more), math/curve exploration, and reading-planning systems.
  • Health dashboards aggregating wearables, lab results, air quality and performance.
  • Apps for autistic kids, toddlers’ phone use, and ADHD-friendly planning/notification systems.

Sentiment about AI & Coding

  • AI praised as an accelerant, accessibility aid, and way to tackle ambitious projects alone.
  • Parallel concern that LLM-driven coding can make programming feel less intrinsically rewarding or harder to learn deeply.
  • Mixed views in creative fields: some avoid AI-generated art; others highlight AI’s role in enabling disabled or burned-out devs to keep building.