Project ideas / For AI coding tools
Every idea on this page comes with a builder brief and a ready-made prompt you can copy into Claude Code, Cursor, Lovable or any other AI coding tool. Open an idea: the brief sits right under the poster's words, with a button to copy the prompt. It includes the idea in the poster's own words, a link back to it, a weekend-sized plan, and an optional last line asking for a small link back in your footer, which you can delete. We aren't affiliated with any of these tools; the prompt is plain text and works anywhere.
Has a builder brief
A student teacher wants to see at a glance how much of each class period remains, without a loud alarm. Enter a bell schedule once, then show a quiet always-visible countdown on the phone or a classroom web page. A full-screen web version works first; a native Live Activity can come later.
Asked for by a student teacher on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Paste a recipe link and get a clean card with ingredients and steps, no ads or backstory. Scale servings, tweak amounts, add your own recipes, and keep a big-text cook mode for when your hands are messy. Offline use and a one-time price (or fully free) are part of the appeal.
Asked for by a home cook on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Daily-transaction budgeting apps create piles of work for those who only check in once or twice a month. Enter balances manually, log only big items like bills, debts and paydays, get bill reminders and see a simple trend line. No bank linking required.
Asked for by a budgeting-app user on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
New photographers often freeze when asked to direct a couple or group. A phone-friendly library of poses with plain-language cues to say aloud, filterable by number of people and setting, would help. Users can save favorites for a shoot.
Asked for by a beginner on r/photography
Has a builder brief
Spare tiles, the passport, seasonal decorations and tools all get stored 'somewhere safe'. Take a photo, type where it went, and search it two years later; households could share one list so relatives can look things up too. Simple search matters more than fancy categories.
Asked for by commenters on an r/SomebodyMakeThis 'what do you wish existed' thread
Has a builder brief
Open a pattern PDF, place a marker at the current instruction, and keep a row counter and a repeat counter beside it. Closing the app saves the page, marker, counters and notes together, with no public upload. Aimed at knitters and crocheters who juggle a PDF, counter and paper notes.
Asked for by a knitter on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
When you hit reply on a heated comment, it pauses for a minute and asks you to sum up the other person's view in one sentence. If your version is far from theirs, it shows both side by side before unlocking Post. No scoring or AI rewriting, just a speed bump.
Asked for by a forum user on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Staff who take the last gloves or towels often forget to tell whoever shops. Scan a QR code taped to the shelf, tap the item, and it lands on the shopper's list, with no sign-up for staff. Useful for care homes, day-cares, small offices and clubs.
Asked for by a care-centre worker on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
A flat list of services, jobs and checks with just green or red status, not charts or analytics. Each check is a URL ping or a webhook; it's for small teams and solo operators. Self-hostable in a single file.
Asked for in an Ask HN thread about tools small businesses lack
Has a builder brief
Young Chinese learners could use a toy where they pick two pinyin syllables and see every word those syllables can form, with tones, meanings and pictures. A switch would let the child search with or without tones, since in films the tones are often hard to hear. It could be built on a free, open Chinese dictionary as a simple website, helping kids look up words they hear in subtitled videos.
Asked for by a poster on Software Recommendations Stack Exchange
Has a builder brief
Some homes have a TV in the kitchen that hardly ever gets watched. This would let it stay dark until a message arrives from someone on a short list you choose, then switch the screen on, show the message with a sound that tells you who sent it, and turn the screen off again after a set time so it doesn't waste power. Messages from anyone not on the list would never show up. It could be an app for an Android TV, with family sending messages from their phones.
Asked for by a poster on Software Recommendations Stack Exchange
Has a builder brief
Children aged about 7 to 9 would see a small row of pictures and write a few sentences that use all of them. As they type, each picture lights up when they use its word, so they can see what they still need to describe, and if they're stuck, tapping a picture shows or says the word. When every row is done, the pieces join into one story the child can read back or hear read aloud, then turn the page for a new set. A parent or teacher would choose the pictures and their words, and it would need no accounts or chat.
Asked for by a poster on Software Recommendations Stack Exchange
Has a builder brief
A lot of housework depends on the weather, visitors, or another job being finished, so a fixed schedule doesn't always help. This reminder would still handle the regular jobs, like laundry on Thursday evening, and also speak up when heavy rain is forecast (check the gutters), when guests are coming tomorrow (tidy up), or the day after a job that needs a follow-up (fold yesterday's washing). Everything would live in one simple list for the household. It could read the local weather forecast and let you add your own events, like a visit, that trigger the right chores.
Asked for by a commenter in a Hacker News thread about things people wish existed
Has a builder brief
Some bathroom scales flash weight, BMI and body-fat readings on a small screen one at a time, so copying them into a spreadsheet by hand is slow and easy to get wrong. A simple phone app could watch the scale's screen through the camera for one full round, read each number, and save them in the same order every time. It could then copy them straight into a spreadsheet, and get better at reading different scale models over time. It would only copy the readings down, without interpreting them or giving medical advice.
Asked for by a poster on Software Recommendations Stack Exchange
Has a builder brief
Parents of several kids lose track of practice times, equipment to pack, fees due and chores. Add each child, their activities and reminders, and see a family tablet view for the day. Calendars are too clunky for gear lists and bills.
Asked for by a father of three on r/AppIdeas
Has a builder brief
Enter exercises (jog, walk, sprint), a set of possible durations, rest time and number of rounds, and the timer picks each round at random. Keeps interval training unpredictable without planning every block. Audio or vibration cues tell you when to switch.
Asked for by an exerciser on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Food goes bad because nobody remembers what is in the fridge or when it expires. Snap the grocery receipt, get a rough inventory with suggested use-by dates, and see a short list of what to cook before it spoils. Manual correction matters more than perfect scanning.
Asked for by a grocery shopper on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Deposit disputes turn on proof of what the place looked like. A guided room-by-room checklist captures dated photos and notes at move-in, repair requests, and move-out, then exports one tidy report for a dispute. It documents evidence only and gives no legal advice.
Asked for by a renter on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Group trip photos end up scattered across phones and trickle into the chat for weeks. Friends add photos to a shared trip during the trip, nobody sees the pile, and on a chosen date everything unlocks at once as a shared album. Think of it as a mini reveal party for the memories.
Asked for by a frequent group traveller on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Family and friends often want to celebrate someone from afar. A host creates a page with a link, guests drop in photos, short videos and notes without needing an account, and the host gets a keepsake page or download afterwards. Optional reveal date keeps it a surprise.
Asked for by a party organizer on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Keeping up with many relatives' birthdays and what they like is a chore, and gift apps ask you to retype interests each time. Store a birthday and a few interests per person, get a reminder ahead of time, and see a handful of gift ideas with links without re-entering anything.
Asked for by a person with a large family on r/SomebodyMakeThis (Spanish-language post)
Has a builder brief
On a phone, how-to articles are buried in popups and videos have no chapters. Paste a URL and get a clean, tick-off list of steps shown one at a time, ideally as a floating step view while you work in another app. Works best for repairs, setup and cooking-style guides.
Asked for by commenters on an r/SomebodyMakeThis 'what do you wish existed' thread
Has a builder brief
Freelancers can't tell how much they truly need when pay arrives irregularly, and they juggle separate apps for budget, projects and taxes. One place would combine upcoming projects and expected payments with bills and a suggested set-aside amount. It must clearly say it is a planning aid, not tax advice.
Asked for by a freelancer on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Following something like a promised sidewalk repair across months of meetings is tedious. Pick passages from the minutes, keep their dates and source links, group them by issue, and show updates, corrections and outcomes in a printable timeline for a library or community binder.
Asked for by a civic-minded community member on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Old radio drama fans lost their favorite app to a worse redesign. A player built on public-domain archives would offer ad-free playback, offline downloads, background play, and a marker for episodes already heard. Source libraries like the Internet Archive keep content costs low.
Asked for by a listener on r/AppIdeas
Has a builder brief
Warehouse stores rarely post aisle signs for products, so shoppers wander. Let people search an item and see the aisle and bay for their store, with community edits and recent-confirmation dates. Starts with a single chain and a map of the floor.
Asked for by a shopper on r/AppIdeas
Has a builder brief
Many shops and public places had earlier lives that people like to rediscover. Pick an address or a spot on a map and read short, reviewed histories of what used to stand there, with dates and sources. Moderation and sources keep it trustworthy.
Asked for by a history-curious person on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Many people never learned who their grandparents really were. A simple tool would let you record messages and set delivery to a future date or life event, with a plan for who receives them and how files stay readable in 50 years. Export-friendly formats and a trusted-contact handoff are the hard part.
Asked for by a person without memories of their grandparents on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
People who buy domains from the cheapest registrar lose track of where each is registered, when it renews and which nameservers it uses. Add domains manually or by lookup and see renewal dates and nameserver changes in one list.
Asked for by a domain collector on r/SomebodyMakeThis
Has a builder brief
Searching a binary for 'a header whose fields look like this' is hard with plain hex search. An editor would let you describe structures with partial values and find matches. Pairing with simple format definitions would make it practical.
Asked for in an Ask HN thread about wished-for dev tools
The brief is written by the site's AI steward, not by the person who asked for the idea. It's a suggestion: a guess at the smallest version that would be useful. Where it doesn't match what the poster wrote, trust the poster. The prompt asks the AI tool to check with you when something is unclear instead of guessing.
An AI tool can get you to a first version quickly, but it still takes a person to try it, notice what's wrong and decide what matters. The people who asked for these ideas want something that works for them, so test it the way they would use it.
Many of these ideas were found in public posts elsewhere and are credited on the ticket. Ideas never lock. When your build works, add it on the idea page so it lands in the gallery.