Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Stay Away from My Trash

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three dominant themes in the discussion

Theme Key points Representative quotes
AI‑generated “slop” issues and PRs Users complain that LLMs produce vague or hallucinated issues that then spawn low‑quality pull requests, wasting maintainers’ time. “Just show me the prompt.” – anileated
“If you don’t have time to write an issue yourself… whom are you trying to fool by making it look pretty?” – anileated
“My low‑effort issues were becoming low‑effort pull requests, with AI doing both sides of the work.” – wiseowise
Erosion of external contribution value With code generation becoming trivial, the cost of reviewing and the risk of bad work rise, making outside contributions potentially negative. “If code is easy to write and bad work is virtually indistinguishable from good, then the value of external contribution is probably less than zero.” – andai
“When code was hard to write and low‑effort work was easy to identify… If code is easy to write… the value of external contribution is probably less than zero.” – netcan
Management/maintainer attitudes & job‑security anxiety Many express confusion or frustration over how leaders view AI, fearing that automation will replace human roles and that maintainers must adapt or risk obsolescence. “I am also confused by corporate or management who seem to think they are immune to AI developments.” – vanillameow
“Do you think any of them cares about long‑term? Regardless of AI, your head is always on a chopping block.” – wiseowise

These themes capture the core concerns: the practical mess of AI‑generated issue content, the strategic question of whether external code still matters, and the cultural shift in how maintainers and managers perceive their own relevance in an AI‑augmented workflow.


🚀 Project Ideas

Generating project ideas…

Context‑Aware Issue Generator

Summary

  • Turns a one‑sentence prompt into a fully‑structured GitHub issue with reproduction steps, expected behavior, and context metadata.
  • Eliminates vague “AI slop” issues by embedding explicit code, UI, and browser context automatically.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Open‑source maintainers, product managers, and developers who use AI assistants.
Core Feature Context extraction (repo, file, UI element, browser tab) + LLM‑powered issue synthesis.
Tech Stack Chrome Extension + GitHub API + OpenAI/Claude LLM + IndexedDB for local context cache.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue‑ready: $5/month per repo, free tier for 5 repos.

Notes

  • HN users complain: “I just want the prompt” but the issue is cryptic without context.
  • “What would make sense for me is to use an AI to turn implicit context that is only there in the moment into explicit context that is stored in the ticket.” – xg15
  • Provides a practical utility: maintainers can review a fully‑formed issue without chasing down screenshots or code snippets.

Slop Contributor Blocker

Summary

  • A GitHub App that tags PRs from contributors identified as “slop” and allows maintainers to auto‑reject or flag them.
  • Mirrors SponsorBlock’s public tagging but for code contributions.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Project maintainers, community managers.
Core Feature Reputation scoring, tag UI, automated PR rejection workflow.
Tech Stack GitHub App (Node.js), PostgreSQL, GitHub Actions, simple web UI.
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • “We need a chrome extension like SponsorBlock, which publicly tags slop contributors.” – smusamashah
  • Enables maintainers to focus on high‑quality PRs and reduces noise from low‑effort contributions.
  • Sparks discussion on community health and contributor vetting.

AI‑Powered Issue Prioritizer & Review Assistant

Summary

  • Analyzes a repo’s issue backlog, auto‑summarizes, categorizes, and suggests priority scores.
  • Generates PR skeletons for high‑value issues, reducing friction for contributors.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Maintainers, triage teams, contributors.
Core Feature LLM summarization, priority scoring, PR template generation.
Tech Stack Python (FastAPI), OpenAI/Claude, GitHub API, Redis cache.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue‑ready: $10/month per repo, free tier for 3 repos.

Notes

  • Addresses “bugtracker should be restricted to bug reports” pain point by ensuring issues are well‑formed before triage.
  • “The entire repository and issue tracker is context.” – HPsquared – the tool leverages that context to surface actionable insights.
  • Provides practical utility for teams overwhelmed by large backlogs and AI‑generated slop.

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