IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Everything as code: How we manage our company in one monorepo

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Monorepo Benefits for AI Tools and Unified Context

Users praise monorepos for simplifying AI workflows like Claude by providing full context in one place, enabling atomic changes across frontend/backend/marketing.

"I used to be against monorepos... Then I got really into claude code, and monorepo makes sense for the first time in my life" - giancarlostoro

"Claude Code can actually work on multiple directories, so this is not strictly necessary!" - esafak (noting alternatives but acknowledging appeal)

2. Deployment Atomicity and Backwards Compatibility Concerns

Skeptics argue monorepos don't enable truly atomic rollouts, especially with clients, DBs, or multi-node setups, requiring compatibility regardless.

"Rollout should be within a minute... Aka it's broken 0.02% of the time" - ChadNauseam
"Atomic changes are mostly a lie when talking about cross API functions" - eddd-ddde

3. Git Workflow Debates: Squash vs. Rebase/Atomic Commits

Intense discussion on squashing PRs for clean history vs. preserving granular commits for review/debugging, with preferences for rebase or stacked diffs.

"squash results in a cleaner commit history" - sallveburrpi
"Squashing only results in a cleaner commit history if you're making a mess... throws information away" - Denvercoder9

🚀 Project Ideas

AI Workspace Aggregator

Summary

  • A CLI/desktop tool that virtually merges multiple git repos into a single workspace for AI coding assistants like Claude, automatically handling context loading via symlinks or overlays without converting to a monorepo.
  • Core value: Enables "one prompt, full context" across repos, solving "prompting twice" and flag hassles like --add-dir ../frontend-repo.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Solo devs/small teams using AI tools on multirepo projects
Core Feature Auto-clone/link repos into unified dir; one-click context load for Claude/VSCode/Cursor; change propagation simulation
Tech Stack Node.js/Go CLI; git submodules symlinks; VSCode extension
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Freemium ($10/mo pro)

Notes

  • "Instead of prompting twice, I can prompt once in one shot and it has the context of both pieces too." (giancarlostoro); HN would love as "catlifeonmars: limitation/assumption... could be improved in the tooling".
  • High discussion potential on AI+git workflows; practical for daily dev.

Cross-Repo Deploy Coordinator

Summary

  • SaaS tool that scans changes across linked repos/services, enforces backwards compat via auto-generated tests/flags, and orchestrates phased/blue-green deploys with rollback.
  • Core value: Makes "one change everywhere atomic" viable without monorepo lockstep, addressing client/server mismatch pains.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Teams with frontend/backend/services fearing breakage on deploys
Core Feature Diff analyzer for API/schema compat; auto feature flag insertion; Kubernetes/ArgoCD integration for sequenced rollouts
Tech Stack Rust backend; GitHub/GitLab API; OpenAPI/Protobuf parsers
Difficulty High
Monetization Revenue-ready: SaaS ($49/mo/team)

Notes

  • "You will still have old clients... talking to updated front ends" (yearolinuxdsktp); "atomic changes are a lie" (eddd-ddde); resonates with "rollout not atomic anyway" (valzam).
  • Utility for scaling teams; sparks debates on monorepo vs polyrepo deploys.

Stacked Diff Git Extension

Summary

  • VSCode/GitHub extension for stacked diffs/PRs: auto-rebase, intelligent squash (preserves bisect info), easy cherry-picks to releases, with AI commit message cleanup.
  • Core value: Clean main history without losing dev granularity, solving squash/rebasing fights and release branching pains.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Monorepo/polyrepo teams debating squash vs rebase
Core Feature Per-commit CI/review/merge; fixup auto-absorb; release branch manager with cherry-pick UI
Tech Stack TypeScript VSCode ext; GitHub API; JJ VCS integration
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • "stacked diffs are the best approach" (mh2266); "squash loses history... git bisect easier" (awesome_dude/Denvercoder9); "cherry picks for fixing releases" (ratorx).
  • HN thread gold for git holy wars; immediate utility for PR workflows.

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