### Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)

As 2025 draws to a close, the final “Ask HN” thread of the year is buzzing with projects that reflect the major shifts we’ve seen in the tech landscape. After a couple of years dominated by foundational model training and generative wrappers, the focus has clearly shifted towards refinement, practical application, and a surprising return to fundamentals.

Here’s a look at the most prominent themes and projects hackers are sharing.

#### The Agent-First Revolution is Here

The most significant trend is the move from simple AI chatbots to sophisticated, autonomous agents. Developers are no longer just calling an API for a text completion; they’re building frameworks for agents that can plan, execute multi-step tasks, and learn from feedback.

* **FinAgent.io:** A user shared a project that links to their bank accounts and credit cards (with heavy emphasis on security and local-first processing) to act as an autonomous financial advisor. It doesn’t just categorize spending; it actively renegotiates bills with utility companies via their chat portals, finds better insurance quotes, and executes trades within user-defined parameters.
* **DevOrchestrator:** One of the top-voted comments is an open-source tool that acts as a project manager for solo developers. You give it a high-level task like “scaffold a new microservice with a Postgres DB and user authentication, then deploy it to Fly.io.” The agent writes the code, creates the pull request, runs tests, and handles the deployment, leaving comments on the PR for the developer to review. It’s a step beyond co-pilots, aiming to handle all the “plumbing” of modern development.

#### Spatial Computing Finds Its Niche

With Apple’s Vision Pro now in its second generation and more affordable AR glasses hitting the market, developers are moving past novelty apps and solving real-world problems.

* **ArchLens:** A team is working on a platform for architects and construction managers to overlay full-scale BIM models onto a physical construction site using AR glasses. They claim it has reduced alignment errors by over 30% in their pilot projects.
* **CanvasXR:** A remote-first company is building a “persistent virtual workspace.” Unlike the meeting-focused apps of the past, this is designed to be an always-on collaborative space. Teams can leave virtual whiteboards, 3D models, and code snippets “in the air” for colleagues to interact with asynchronously. The focus is less on avatars and more on the shared, spatial data.

#### The Local-First Renaissance

A growing undercurrent of developers is pushing back against the cloud-native, everything-as-a-service model. Citing privacy, data ownership, and a desire for more resilient software, the local-first movement is gaining serious traction.

* **CrateNotes:** One developer is building a notes and knowledge-base app that is fully local but offers seamless peer-to-peer and device-to-device sync using CRDTs. It’s positioned as a self-hosted, private alternative to Notion and Obsidian, combining the best of both.
* **SyncKit:** Another popular comment showcased a Rust-based SDK that makes it trivial to build local-first applications. It handles the complex logic for data replication, conflict resolution, and end-to-end encryption, allowing developers to focus on the application itself rather than the synchronization backend.

#### Sustainable Code and Green Tech

The energy consumption of massive AI models and data centers has become a major concern, and HN users are building tools to address it.

* **GridWise AI:** A SaaS product that helps companies schedule non-critical compute jobs (like model training or data processing) based on real-time energy grid data. The system automatically shifts workloads to times when renewable energy is most abundant, reducing both cost and carbon footprint.
* **Wasm Everywhere:** Multiple developers mentioned they are moving services from heavy Docker containers to lightweight WebAssembly modules. One user shared metrics showing an 80% reduction in cold-start times and a significant drop in idle resource consumption for their serverless functions after migrating to a Wasm runtime.

#### The Ever-Present Indie Hacker

Of course, no “What are you working on?” thread would be complete without the solo founders and side-project enthusiasts building impressive niche products.

* A beautifully designed, open-source personal dashboard for tracking habits, fitness data from various APIs, and personal finance, all self-hosted on a Raspberry Pi 6.
* A hyper-niche SaaS for apiarists (beekeepers) to manage hive health, track honey production, and predict swarm events using sensor data and a small, specialized ML model.
* A text-based MMORPG with a complex, procedurally generated world, written entirely in Zig for performance and a tiny memory footprint.

Overall, the sentiment in December 2025 is one of focused, pragmatic building. The initial gold rush of generative AI has subsided, leaving a landscape where developers are using powerful new tools to build more efficient, private, and genuinely useful products.