Thursday, September 11, 2025

Show HN: Haystack – Review pull requests like you wrote them yourself https://ift.tt/eBkb9Qc

Show HN: Haystack – Review pull requests like you wrote them yourself Hi HN! We’re Akshay and Jake. We put together a tool called Haystack to make pull requests straightforward to read. What Haystack does: -- Builds a clear narrative. Changes in Haystack aren’t just arranged as unordered diffs. Instead, they unfold in a logical order, each paired with an explanation in plain, precise language -- Focuses attention where it counts. Routine plumbing and refactors are put into skimmable sections so you can spend your time on design and correctness -- Provides full cross-file context. Every new or changed function/variable is traced across the codebase, showing how it’s used beyond the immediate diff Here’s a quick demo: https://youtu.be/w5Lq5wBUS-I If you’d like to give it a spin, head over to haystackeditor.com/review! We set up some demo PRs that you should be able to understand and review even if you’ve never seen the repos before! We used to work at big companies, where reviewing non-trivial pull requests felt like reading a book with its pages out of order. We would jump and scroll between files, trying to piece together the author’s intent before we could even start reviewing. And, as authors, we would spend time to restructure our own commits just to make them readable. AI has made this even trickier. Today it’s not uncommon for a pull request to contain code the author doesn’t fully understand themselves! So, we built Haystack to help reviewers spend less time untangling code and more time giving meaningful feedback. We would love to hear about whether it gets the job done for you! How we got here: Haystack began as (yet another) VS Code fork where we experimented with visualizing code changes on a canvas. At first, it was a neat way to show how pieces of code worked together. But customers started laying out their entire codebase just to make sense of it. That’s when we realized the deeper problem: understanding a codebase is hard, and engineers need better ways to quickly understand unfamiliar code. As we kept building, another insight emerged: with AI woven into workflows, engineers don’t always need to master every corner of a codebase to ship features. But in code review, deep and continuous context still matters, especially to separate what’s important to review from plumbing and follow-on changes. So we pivoted. We took what we’d learned and worked closely with engineers to refine the idea. We started with simple code analysis (using language servers, tree-sitter, etc.) to show how changes relate. Then we added AI to explain and organize those changes and to trace how data moves through a pull request. Finally, we fused the two by empowering AI agents to use static analyses. Step by step, that became the Haystack we’re showing today. We’d love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or suggestions! https://ift.tt/Cw76Koa September 10, 2025 at 11:51PM

Show HN: Strange Attractors – a maths side-project in Threejs https://ift.tt/wMKT6Fr

Show HN: Strange Attractors – a maths side-project in Threejs I went down the rabbit hole on a side project and ended up building this: [Strange Attractors]( https://ift.tt/ySxRMuP ). It’s built with three.js. Working on it reminded me of the little "maths for fun" exercises I used to do while learning programming in early days. Just trying things out, getting fascinated and geeky, and being surprised by the results. I spent way too much time on this, but it was extreme fun. My favorite part: someone pointed me to the Simone Attractor on Threads. It is a 2D attractor and I asked GPT to extrapolate it to 3D, not sure if it’s mathematically correct, but it’s the coolest by far. I have left all the params configurable, so give it a try. I called it Simone (Maybe). If you like math-art experiments, check it out. Would love feedback, especially from folks who know more about the math side. https://ift.tt/ySxRMuP September 10, 2025 at 11:27PM

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Show HN: An Open Source XR(AR/VR) Operating System https://ift.tt/FboxYIN

Show HN: An Open Source XR(AR/VR) Operating System We're two college students building an XR(AR/VR) native Operating System with a custom kernel. We're also Open Source so feel free to check our GitHub Repository- https://ift.tt/SLsZY4M . The journey hasn't exactly been easy, we've been criticized by a lot saying that whatever we're doing is impractical and that we're too ambitious. Regardless, we've been committed to reach our goal. Here to answer all questions and doubts. Answering one question beforehand because we know someone is going to ask it - Q: Why use your own kernel/ Why don't you use Linux/ Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? A: Using our own kernel helps us get rid of the baggage of legacy codes, bring the most optimal performance on our target hardware (XR/AR/VR) and achieve more efficiency than what we would've achieved on an existing kernel. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel, but just building Formula One racing tyres for it. https://ift.tt/MBblJAw September 7, 2025 at 04:39PM

Show HN: Paper's Heat Map Shader https://ift.tt/lguAFtb

Show HN: Paper's Heat Map Shader Paper is a new design tool. We launched into open alpha today. Anyone can now sign up and use Paper. We started Paper about 1 year ago with the goal to bring more creativity back into design tools. It feels like the existing options are becoming increasingly corporate. To celebrate to launch, we published a new shader that lets anyone see their logo in Apple's new heat map animation style. There is no sign-up needed at heat.paper.design. We're always looking for feedback from anyone who uses Sketch, Figma, Photoshop, or Illustrator, about what they most need in their professional design tools. Have fun with the new shader and please send me anything you make! https://ift.tt/9dUpsHx September 9, 2025 at 11:33PM

Show HN: Atsphinx-qrcode – Sphinx extension to generate QR code in document https://ift.tt/zS2Yh6p

Show HN: Atsphinx-qrcode – Sphinx extension to generate QR code in document Document is here: https://atsphinx.github.io/qrcode/ https://ift.tt/GRnvTPt September 9, 2025 at 11:12PM

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Show HN: Gemini connected to 18 native iOS tools and shortcuts https://ift.tt/JiXkWdY

Show HN: Gemini connected to 18 native iOS tools and shortcuts I built an iOS voice assistant that connects your action button to Gemini Live with 18 native iOS tools like location, calendar, and so on. It also connects to any shortcuts you have on your phone. Totally free, no account, no setup. https://saturn-live.app September 8, 2025 at 10:44PM

Transit Spotlight: Driving a Better 29 Sunset with Your Feedback

Transit Spotlight: Driving a Better 29 Sunset with Your Feedback
By Brian Haagsman

Students use new, improved 29 Sunset stops on Sunset Boulevard. This Transit Month, we’ll go behind the scenes of our work to make your trips safer and more reliable along Muni routes across the city. Every week, we will spotlight a transit project and share how feedback and data have helped us meet community needs. Today, we showcase how a campaign led by SFUSD students inspired a series of upgrades we made along the 29 Sunset. Learn how community feedback helped us drive more reliable rides. And see how you can weigh in by Monday, Sept. 15 to shape proposals for the next six miles of the...



Published September 08, 2025 at 05:30AM
https://ift.tt/DwTZhCO

Show HN: StarScope – Free astronomy dashboard for observers outside the US/UK https://ift.tt/LgOr41F

Show HN: StarScope – Free astronomy dashboard for observers outside the US/UK https://starscope.live/feed June 16, 2026 at 12:51AM