From AI Agents to Compilers: What Developers Are Building Now

The landscape of side projects is as diverse as the developers building them, ranging from practical business productivity tools to niche technical research and creative endeavors. These projects demonstrate how individuals are leveraging modern technology to solve specific, often highly personalized, problems.

Productivity and Knowledge Management

A recurring theme is the desire to better manage information and workflows. One project, WrenLore, is a knowledge management system designed for both human users and AI agents to help synthesize and maintain documentation. Another, ChatKeeper, addresses the friction of localizing data by automatically converting ChatGPT exports into organized Markdown files for use in personal knowledge management tools like Obsidian, offering an in-place update feature that preserves user-added metadata.

AI-Driven Tools and Optimization

AI continues to be a central pillar for new development. Projects like Leedlime focus on social listening across multiple platforms (LinkedIn, X, Reddit, YouTube) to alert users to relevant discussions about their products. Halftrace simplifies agentic AI development by analyzing logs to provide insights into an agent's rule-following behavior, while other projects look toward infrastructure, such as a workload scheduler aimed at significantly increasing datacenter utilization from typical low levels to over 90%.

Technical Experiments and Niche Tools

The power of individual engineering is evident in deep technical work: * Compiler Design: Developing toy languages that compile to static Linux/amd64 assembly, including the challenging task of implementing standard library functions from scratch. * Data Exploration: Tools like ColumnLens are being ported across operating systems to bring specialized data exploration capabilities to Windows and Linux. * Transparency: Projects are tackling data density, applying techniques like Min Hashing to identify and eliminate massive amounts of duplicate or "ghost" data within public health transparency disclosures. * RF Engineering: Practical learning in radio frequency test gear, specifically optimizing transformer alignment processes to improve filtering.

Beyond the Keyboard

While highly technical projects dominate, the spirit of "building" extends to creative hobbies, such as VERDURE, a unique sandbox game focused on plant growth and shaping, and even the simple, essential commitment of being a present parent, reminding us that some of the most important work happens away from the screen.

Whether you are a developer looking for inspiration or a hobbyist seeking new tools, these projects highlight the importance of identifying a specific problem—even a small or personal one—and applying a structured approach to solving it.