Ideas asked for on Hacker News, and what got built

The ideas

• A shared rating of which food jars and tubs are easy to clean out and reuse

  People who wash out jam jars and food tubs to reuse them find that some brands' labels peel off cleanly while others tear and leave sticky glue behind, and some products come in far more plastic than others. This would be a simple shared list where you look up a product and see how easy its container is to reuse, then add your own rating after trying it: did the label come off, is the lid worth keeping, how much extra packaging was there. Next time you shop, you could pick the brand with the friendlier jar. Products could be found by name or by scanning the barcode, using the free Open Food Facts product list.

  Asked for by a commenter in a Hacker News thread

  #home#recycling#shopping#kitchen

  #0039wanted

• A chore reminder that reacts to the weather and what's happening at home, not just a fixed schedule

  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

  #home#chores#reminders#weather

  #0036wanted

• A simple dashboard of red and green lights for everything you run

  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

  #developer-tools#monitoring#small-business

  #0031wanted

• A hex editor with fuzzy field-aware search for binary file formats

  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

  #developer-tools#binary#reverse-engineering

  #0030wanted

• A way to run your CI job locally in the same environment before committing

  Developers end up committing repeatedly just to debug pipeline YAML. A tool would reproduce the CI environment on your machine so you can iterate on scripts locally. The pain is mostly in matching images and secrets.

  Asked for in an Ask HN thread about wished-for dev tools

  #developer-tools#ci#docker

  #0029wanted

• An ssh-in-and-get-a-disposable-container service that vanishes on exit

  Type ssh to a host and land in a fresh throwaway container or microVM that is destroyed or paused when you disconnect. Useful for testing untrusted scripts or trying tools without polluting your machine. Keep it self-hostable and hardened.

  Asked for in an Ask HN thread about wished-for dev tools

  #developer-tools#ssh#containers

  #0028wanted