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Show HN: Micasa – track your house from the terminal

657 points by cpcloud 8mo ago

micasa is a terminal UI that helps you track home stuff, in a single SQLite file. No cloud, no account, no subscription. Backup with cp. I built it because I was tired of losing track of everything in notes apps, and "I'll remember that"s. When do I need to clean the dishwasher filter? What's the best quote for a complete overhaul of the backyard. Oops, found some mold behind the trim, need to address that ASAP. That sort of stuff. Another reason I made micasa was to build a (hopefully useful) low-stakes personal project where the code was written entirely by AI. I still review the code and click the merge button, but 99% of the programming was done with an agent. Here are some things I think make it worth checking out: - Vim-style modal UI. Nav mode to browse, edit mode to change. Multicolumn sort, fuzzy-jump to columns, pin-and-filter rows, hide columns you don't need, drill into related records (like quotes for a project). Much of the spirit of the design and some of the actual design choices is and are inspired by VisiData. You should check that out too. - Local LLM chat. Definitely a gimmick, but I am trying preempt "Yeah, but does it AI?"-style conversations. This is an optional feature and you can simply pretend it doesn't exist. All features work without it. - Single-file SQLite-based architecture. Document attachments (manuals, receipts, photos) are stored as BLOBs in the same SQLite database. One file is the whole app state. If you think this won't scale, you're right. It's pretty damn easy to work with though. - Pure Go, zero CGO. Built on Charmbracelet for the TUI and GORM + go-sqlite for the database. Charm makes pretty nice TUIs, and this was my first time using it. Try it with sample data: go install github.com/cpcloud/micasa/cmd/micasa@latest && micasa --demo If you're insane you can also run micasa --demo --years 1000 to generate 1000 years worth of demo data. Not sure what house would last that long, but hey, you do you.

HoldOnAMinute 8mo ago
That is a beautiful TUI!
hunterirving 8mo ago
Pretty slick! And I really enjoyed the interactive, destructible house at the top :-)
oidar 8mo ago
Your quotes are great.
beardsciences 8mo ago
This is looking pretty good. Going to run some sample data runs + might try this out.
smartmic 8mo ago
> Not sure what house would last that long Not necessarily houses, but there are some old buildings around almost everywhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_extant_buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_extant_building...
yomismoaqui 8mo ago
You can also run directly: go run github.com/cpcloud/micasa/cmd/micasa@latest
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
mrpf1ster 8mo ago
Looks good - I like the TUI a lot. The only thing with that type of interface is that there is no chance my wife would use it via the terminal. It would be cool if there was a web UI as well - so other members of the household could access and use it.
- cheema33 8mo ago
  This. If I am the only one who can use it and only from one computer, it would be entirely useless for my needs. I have several computers and also family members who would need access to that data. A Google Docs spreadsheet would be a better tool for my specific needs I think.
  - fix4fun 8mo ago
    I think the same. Why overcomplicate and just use some online Spreadsheet like from Google Docs. The same or even less effort.
    - subscribed 8mo ago
      Quite clearly not the same (as in Google Docs will provide maybe 10% in terms of feature parity).
aeve890 8mo ago
The testimonials cracked me up. I'm still managing my house maintenance on a spreadsheet like an absolute barbarian. I mean I was, until now. Does it come in Catpuccin?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  I hadn't considered theming it differently, though in theory it should be adaptive to light versus dark terminals. I only use dark terminals and I couldn't be bothered to test that before there were any users, so if it doesn't work, I will happily task it out to an agent! Now I kind of want custom themes...
fudged71 8mo ago
I think/hope the whole "home manager" category is going to take off soon. On a cost basis, it no longer makes sense--practically--not to use visual/text/audio intelligence to manage such a large asset. We just don't have the user-friendly mass-market interfaces for it just yet. It's possible to scan every manual, every insurance policy, ingest every local bylaw. It's possible to take a video of your home and transform it into a semantically segmented Gsplat of [nearly] everything you own. It's possible to do sensor fusion of all the outward facing cameras from your home. And obviously agents like OpenClaw can decide what to do with all of this (inventory, security, optimization, etc).
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  > It's possible to do sensor fusion of all the outward facing cameras from your home Is that legal though? I'm guessing it the US it might be, given the amount of cameras of public places you can see in various communities, but wonder how common that is. Where I live (Spain) it's not legal to just stick a camera on your house and record public places, you need to put the camera in a way so you're only filming your private property or similar.
  - matthewfcarlson 8mo ago
    The US gives you no expectation of privacy in public places and private property is generally do what you want. It gets murkier if your cameras are pointed at other private property (your neighbors). Not a legal expert just what I’ve heard.
    - thfuran 8mo ago
      As I understand it (which probably isn’t well), expectation of privacy on private spaces in the US gets pretty wonky. Like being in plain view on a front lawn wouldn’t have expectation of privacy but being behind a fence would even if the fence doesn’t do a good job of blocking sight lines.
  - subscribed 8mo ago
    I've got several cameras outside my house, but these recording 24/7 are adjusted to capture my property only (garden, front drive, entrances etc) That's legal. If someone gets recorded that's because they left the public land and entered mine.
wolvoleo 8mo ago
Thinking of this it would be amazing to have a TUI for home assistant. It's already so good at doing all the nuts and bolts of control and interacting with everything. But its UI is super heavy loaded JavaScript. It doesn't run well on old tablets either for this reason, sadly.
- jefurii 8mo ago
  I would love to have a TUI for Home Assistant!
- sublinear 8mo ago
  There's a CLI [1], LLM API [2], and REST API [3]. [1]: https://github.com/home-assistant-ecosystem/home-assistant-cli https://github.com/home-assistant-ecosystem/home-assistant-c... [2]: https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/core/llm/ https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/core/llm/ [3]: https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/api/rest/ https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/api/rest/
- dmd 8mo ago
  My overall philosophy for (my quite extensive) Home Assistant setup is “amy time a human interacts with the HA UI in any way whatsoever, that is a failure.” I don’t want dashboards, I don’t want a user interface at ALL other than for setting up new automation. The point of HA for me is the house should feel like the correct things happen by magic (and should be essentially unobtrusive and natural).
  - cpcloud 8mo ago
    I've honestly never explored HA. Is there a world where HA obviates micasa. That seems like a win, at least in terms of not having yet another piece of software duplicating an existing thing.
  - wolvoleo 8mo ago
    Oh that's not my philosophy at all. I don't like too much automation because I'm very fussy as to what I want at one moment. It all depends on my mood which home assistant doesn't know. Sometimes when I enter a room I want the lights on, other times I don't, stuff like that. Like when the curtains are open and I'm walking around half naked. And sometimes I just like the dark and sometimes I need bright lights. Sometimes I need heat and sometimes sitting in 16 degrees (C) is totally fine. Yeah I'm weird I know :) Also I'm really chaotic in terms of schedule. My mood and behaviour changes by the day. I use it more as a monitoring and control tool. Not saying your way is bad, it's more as HA is intended. But I'm just saying it won't work for me.
asgarovf 8mo ago
Looks really cool. Agree on comments related to TUI. Maybe a simple interface running locally would be better.
reconnecting 8mo ago
Any ideas why Claude forces TUI application development?
- max8539 8mo ago
  It’s easy then run a web server for a web UI, but it still looks better than a regular CLI
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Maybe it's that TUIs feel manageable with an agent. They can be well scoped without a ton of effort, which at least for me makes me a tiny bit more comfortable letting them write code.
  - reconnecting 8mo ago
    It feels like something to do with front-end development limitations. I noticed a wave of TUI applications, all written by Claude from the initial commit.
    - big_toast 8mo ago
      I started a golang TUI last summer with Codex Web/Cloud because it felt more like a closed loop. It was able to manage pretty well end to end. Every additional complexity hop probably increases the attrition rate for successful development, so TUIs end up the most frequent bean to bar currently possible for hobbyists. I really wanted an iOS app. I considered a web app, or a localhost app. Each additional hurdle (containers, packages, builds, testing, running, OSes, browser integration, computer use) feels like upping the required power of the models.
- efficax 8mo ago
  It's pretty good at building TUIs. Although it's not bad at Swift/macOS either. But really I think the problem is that we don't have a great solution right now for cross platform native UIs that isn't a WebView (or entire Chrome browser), which doesn't feel very native. But every platform has a pretty good terminal now, even Windows.
iamjackg 8mo ago
Heck yeah! Love the VisiData shoutout. Echoing other people's desire for a web UI, mostly so I don't have to be the sole Maintainer of the Truth as the only resident household technomancer. EDIT: alternatively, exposing the data/functionality via MCP or similar would allow me to connect this to an agent using Home Assistant Voice, so anybody in the house could ask for changes or add new information.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  This is super interesting. I do have a GitHub issue for LLM-powered data entry: "Add a landscaping project to do the backyard. Still ideating, thinking a budget of $40k."
- defaultcompany 8mo ago
  This makes me want to use visidata for my databases.
  - cpcloud 8mo ago
    Funny enough, Saul and I recently hacked on getting visidata's Ibis integration updated, so you can use visidata for poking around databases of any size, really. You might like that, but also visidata has non-ibis support for SQLite I believe.
atonse 8mo ago
This looks awesome but I think I might still prefer to have an agent make these changes. Not sure though. In general, I love the juxtaposition of the most advanced computer technology ever (AI) causing an explosion in one of the OLDEST computer technology we've ever had (terminals). I spend most of my day in a terminal now. It's just funny.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  > This looks awesome but I think I might still prefer to have an agent make these changes. Not sure though. Not entirely sure what you mean here, but the next big feature for micasa is an autopopulation pipeline. Upload a quote PDF and populate the project, quote, and vendor tables. It might not be viable ultimately, but I would love to see how far I can get. Overkill? Definitely.
  - atonse 8mo ago
    Yep that's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think it's overkill. It feels very natural and filling out forms feels archaic to me (unless it's a "edit this quickly" where that's almost always faster than asking an agent.) So I've been building a full piece of software to manage my small business. And it looks like traditional software (forms, tables, etc). But every single thing also has an MCP tool. So then I find myself just talking to the agent especially as an input mechanism way more than clicking around and editing a form. I'm just saying, as an input method, I think forms, TUIs, etc will be good as a backup. Over time, as you've outlined, we'd just say "here's a PDF, figure it out" and the agent just inputs the right values into the right fields. That's how I've approached my run-my-business app. I have models/tables for clients, purchase orders, invoices, support tasks, everything. But my interaction is more like "Add me to all the active projects, set my cost rate to __" and it'll run 15 MCP calls and put the data where it belongs. Or I'll ask "what invoices are way overdue?" and it'll run the MCP calls to get it, even though I have pretty dashboards. Glad to see you're already thinking of it.
thomascountz 8mo ago
files are stored as BLOBs inside the SQLite database, so cp micasa.db backup.db backs up everything – no sidecar files SQLite is just so cool. Anyway, this whole project looks amazing. I can't wait to kick tires (and then track when I last changed my tires... wait, can it do that?!)
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  One of my first thoughts after getting a working prototype was: "Doesn't the car battery need to be replaced?" So, yeah. This would obviously be called micarro.
  - kayge 8mo ago
    And for doctors appointments... micuerpo!
- simjohan 8mo ago
  Cool talk with Richard Hipp, the creator of SQLite: https://corecursive.com/066-sqlite-with-richard-hipp/ https://corecursive.com/066-sqlite-with-richard-hipp/
hilti 8mo ago
Wow! This is so cool. I really need to get my hands on TUI. It seems to be a growing trend. Maybe it's a stupid question, because I know about family members that have never opened a terminal - can a TUI app bundled with an icon to simply click and start it?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  > can a TUI app bundled with an icon to simply click and start it? Almost certainly. I personally don't use clicky things to the extent that I am able to avoid them, so I can't describe the specific mechanism or name any of the nouns/tools involved, but I'm pretty sure this exists.
  - cyberge99 8mo ago
    You just create a shortcut to the binary in the dock or desktop on macos.
whiplash451 8mo ago
This looks so much better than most project/product management tools out there. In my wildest dreams, your project would turn into a jira that devs love.
amelius 8mo ago
Why not keep everything in a simple text file?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  I'm not sure if you're asking whether micasa should use a text file as its format, or if you're suggesting that a text file can be a substitute for micasa.
  - amelius 8mo ago
    The latter. I do things in my house too infrequently that I don't want to have to re-learn the UI of a tool again and again. But maybe I'm not the target audience.
    - cpcloud 8mo ago
      I often find myself wanting answers to questions that require linking data, and I also want to codify those links somehow, so a single-file, row-oriented database seemed like the appropriate way to get that. You might actually be able to get away with less structure and just dumps thoughts and ideas, statuses, and documents into $AI and have it generate ad-hoc reports. In which case, a text file might be the right interface. Kind of a non-answer, I realize. I suppose the answer is: because I had a relatively specific idea of what I wanted to build and I didn't consider not building it.
- subscribed 8mo ago
  Why use Dropbox if rsync / FTP exists :) For the features. Text file has none of them.
nkrisc 8mo ago
This is basically what I want, but with a UI that non-techie spouse wouldn’t mind using. Though that doesn't seem to be your intended direction, which is fair. We use Apple Reminders for grocery lists and Paprika for recipes, but something a little more organized than just a shared note for these sorts of things would be great. I will probably check it out for myself though.
- bazmattaz 8mo ago
  I have the same stakeholder requirements so we use Trello to track everything in our house
mattw2121 8mo ago
I created a basic site to do some similar things as well: https://homemaintlist.com/ https://homemaintlist.com/ Need to revisit it and update it based on a lot of feedback I've received.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  I definitely waffled a bit on multi-property support, but decided against it for initial launch. Multi-property avid terminal users seems even more niche!
max8539 8mo ago
Looks nice, I like this TUI aesthetic, but I’m not sure I could use it on a daily basis. A self-hosted app or phone app might be more convenient
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  100% on the phone app. Maybe the web app is the phone app? Dunno. Being able to enter information as close to receiving as possible seems key actually. I'll probably poke on this soon.
  - max8539 8mo ago
    It could be a native mobile app, but in that case you’d need to think about platforms, the App Store, and so on. A progressive web app could be a nice alternative: just add the website icon to your phone, and you can open it in seconds. The app could be self-hosted on a home server, and solutions like Tailscale would let you easily access it outside the house as well. A big plus is that you can open it on all your devices and have a unified database across them. With a web app, you could even keep the TUI aesthetic - just style it like a CLI interface.
AstroBen 8mo ago
TUIs have gotten so good lately. I love the design on this
kylehotchkiss 8mo ago
The same way that Gen Z wants shitty blurry photos of everything, I want more terminal UIs for everyday life. AI isn't going to give us beautiful native swift apps, it just gives us more garbage electron ones. So TUI would be a better aspiration I guess.
aeblyve 8mo ago
I feel like a lot of these types of apps could just be spreadsheets. Maybe a "smart" spreadsheet like Grist[0] executing Python code. Am I off-base there? [0] https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core
- iugtmkbdfil834 8mo ago
  I will say that I am slowly becoming a convert to 'talk to data' approach. Still, it is not without its flaws. At the end of the day, it still requires the user to update stuff and, from experience, this is where I fail and render all those project apps useless..for me specifically. It sucks, because it sounds like what I really need is for someone to track it for me so that i can just review it if needed.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Probably right. My brain is probably stuck in old-man spreadsheet land and I did not explore any new horizons that might have obviated micasa. That said, I also didn't want to invest a bunch of time in developing a domain specific app using spreadsheets as the API, I wanted to invest a bunch of time developing a domain specific app using AI. Might end up being a choice I regret!
  - aeblyve 8mo ago
    That's all fair. It is a cool piece of work nonetheless. For example I am thinking, what if I wanted to hook up my micasa instance to some other arbitrary self-hosted service? If it's an App that means bespoke code, with a spreadsheet stack it is trivial.
- deeth_starr_v 8mo ago
  I agree. While I really like the idea of being able to query some of this data, it's another system to maintain. I have a system where I use a calendar, physical folder, and notes/folder in the cloud. Call me lazy.
blaze33 8mo ago
I love the logo, go ahead and click it!
moralestapia 8mo ago
Wow, this took me BACK! My first computer was a 486, I was running MS-DOS (iirc) and there was an app that did just that with a very similar (Text)UI, anyone else used it/remembers the name?
numbers 8mo ago
I love TUIs and I love the way this looks and the concept behind it, but often I'm doing household stuff on my phone because I'm walking around checking on things or just taking photos of things.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Yes, one of the other comments alluded to this as well. I am also in this boat, so other than bizarroland LLM ingest stuff, I'll probably work on this next. Having never written a mobile app, I'm sure it'll be fine.
oulipo2 8mo ago
Cool! Although I'd rather use Obsidian with the Tables stuff, so I get everything in my UI with photos, and I can share with mobile
- _neil 8mo ago
  I'm building a Home vault like this currently. With the new obsidian cli, you can do a lot more with letting an agent manage things and update dashboards, etc. for you.
jbonatakis 8mo ago
Just want to say, I appreciate your work on Ibis. I’ve been looking into building sort of a dbt-esque alternative on top of it and noticed how involved you’ve been with its development. I think it’s a cool piece of tech that deserves more attention.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Thanks! Curious to see what you build with it.
matthewfcarlson 8mo ago
I built something somewhat similar to this that's web app based (honeydew) but it's much more focused on DIY and doesn't include any of the quote/contractor stuff. It's absolutely focused on powering through a huge pile of todos from a home inspection with dependency tracking as well as remembering stuff (when was the last time you empty the washing machine filter). It practice it alternates between annoying thing I dismiss the notifications from or use obsessively. Doesn't seem to be much in between
- cbull 8mo ago
  Do you have a link to the app? There's way too many hits searching for honeydew online...
icar 8mo ago
Pretty cool mise use -g github:cpcloud/micasa and just start typing. I wish it had metric units and was translated, though!
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Nice. I would definitely consider making it locale sensitive.
gleenn 8mo ago
Someone has a sense of humor in the reviews section: "I’ve been using the demo data for three weeks. I don’t own a house. — Aspiring Homeowner"
- kayge 8mo ago
  I didn't see that review in the 4 shown in that section until I refreshed the page... there are some good ones in there, including a Hacker News shoutout :D
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- avarun 8mo ago
  I guarantee that's an AI-written joke.
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    Does it make it less funny? Do you find yourself laughing, but then you get soured because although the chuckle that was made was genuine, it came about from something that was created by a computer, so we have to hate ourselves for chuckling. Is that how it works?
    - cpcloud 8mo ago
      Now THAT was funny.
  - cpcloud 8mo ago
    It is.
  - aitchnyu 8mo ago
    Did I miss the innovation in AI humor? I searched for AI written jokes and they all seem like Markhov chain output.
    - 7mo ago
sergiomattei 8mo ago
This is probably the most beautiful homepage + docs combo I’ve ever seen. The copy is awesome too. It feels human. Great work.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Much appreciated. Definitely A LOT of back and forth on the copy, design was actually very few iterations. Docs of course have their own rule in AGENTS.md, since Claude seems only slightly less likely than your average software engineer to forget about documentation. :)
marxisttemp 8mo ago
I wouldn’t want to use a terminal-only tool with no affordances for cloud sync for home management, something that inherently is likely to involve all members of a household who are likely not all proficient with terminal usage. You should ask your LLM to make something that can run as a home server and have different clients. I also personally wouldn’t trust the database of all my important home info to a vibe-coded program.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Reasonable stance.
small_model 8mo ago
It think this could be extended to other areas, like car (services, new lease etc), health (dentist, doctor etc), vacations, tax, banking... Basically a personal assistant like app that handles "life".
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Yep, I have a few open issues about this. Cars and tools were next on my list.
Keekgette 8mo ago
[flagged]
stronglikedan 8mo ago
> When do I need to clean the dishwasher filter? Dishwashers have filters??!?
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- globular-toast 8mo ago
  They do in Europe. They have water softeners too that you have to fill with salt. Don't believe it's the case around the world. More than you ever wanted to know about dishwashers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04
- burkaman 8mo ago
  Many have removable filters that you're supposed to clean periodically. If there's nothing obviously removable in yours then it might have a "self-cleaning" system that would be harder to take out and clean yourself.
- someothherguyy 8mo ago
  yes, and the answer is every so often
- CobrastanJorji 8mo ago
  Wait until I tell you about your water heater's sacrificial anode. NOBODY replaces those.
  - mfkp 8mo ago
    I got an electric one so I never need to remember to replace mine!
    - efreak 7mo ago
      I think the electric ones need to be replaced eventually too, not not nearly as often.
mgaunard 8mo ago
why not just use a spreadsheet?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Valid question. Mostly because I wanted linking and couldn't be bothered to lookup vlookup. Naturally, the first alternative approach I considered was build a terminal app.
interroboink 8mo ago
I didn't see it on the feature list, but it might be nice to allow it to run as a cron job and send email for reminders. These days, most mobile phones have an associated email like your-phone-number@vztext.com (depending on carrier), so you can send yourself text messages about chores and whatnot. Or, perhaps just as good, have a way for it to dump out data as json, and could be consumed by some other send-the-email tool. There is the "-json" sqlite option, of course, but I'm not sure if your schema is meant to be stable. I have a perl script for reminders like this that has been super handy over the 10+ years I've been using it. Never bit the bullet to put it in a nice UI or have a backing DB like this project, though.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  There's definitely some scope and appetite for some notifications/reminders here. I haven't thought about the UX here, but the ingest pipeline + automatic reminders seems like a killer combo!
stephen_cagle 8mo ago
I think this is neat. I use org-mode for pretty much everything, which has all of these features I think, but sometimes there is nothing more motivating than a quick responsive UI to actually do something. This looks motivational. My only pushback is using sqlite. I am a big fan of just using simple (structured) text files that can be edited by hand when needed. Your computer is more than capable of doing all the joining/querying/aggregating/whatever with the text file itself rather than relying on a database. I personally find these sort of file structures comforting as it means they can be easily modified in unsupported ways.
basketbla 8mo ago
Is there even a Wichita, Arkansas?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Probably not. The demo data is fake. Mostly there to test drive it with ephemeral data.
twostorytower 8mo ago
Very cool! When on docs column, and pressing e to edit, it seems to just take you to edit the entire project, with no way to edit docs (which I am not sure what that even is supposed to be, I assume a way to attach files?).
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  This UX was a bit iffy for me, but I thought I'd experiment with it and decided to go with it. When you edit an ID column, it opens a form editor to edit the entire row at once. The thinking was to make all columns editable _in some way_, but ID columns are autogenerated and thus not designed to be directly manipulated. I thought: since the ID represents a unique entity, in this case document, then it made some sense to make editing that editing the whole row. That said, this is a bug even with the explanation I just gave: editing on the ID column of Docs doesn't show all the row's data in the form. Will fix that shortly.
killa_kyle 8mo ago
This is dope.
edgarvaldes 8mo ago
Super cool. Installed. It would be great if the f and b keys for moving between navigation elements circle back to the first element once reached its end.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Heh, I actually turned that off because I kept getting confused about where I was. Perhaps there's a better UX there, or better styling that would make me less confused and keep the nav wrapping.
open592 8mo ago
This is awesome, love the sense of humor and just downloaded it and started adding data. Only small piece of feedback is that I would use `$VISUAL` when opening the editor. When I tried to use `Ctrl+e` it opened nano which I haven't used in ages. Edit: Oh looks like you use `$EDITOR` - I just didn't have that set. Awesome! These are the projects which make me love Show HN!
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Thanks for the feedback! Did you hit this in the Docs open flow? micasa will call xdg-open (linux)/open (mac)/cmd (windows) when opening a document, but there's nothing that's explicitly opening a text editor.
  - open592 8mo ago
    Sorry for the late reply, this was for when you're adding a renovation for instance and there is a section for "notes" - you can hit `ctrl+e` and it will open in an editor. Looks like it doesn't register `$VISUAL` but does use `$EDITOR` not sure if that is a `xdg-open` behavior though.
tremarley 8mo ago
This looks incredible
eiginn 8mo ago
Praise be to projects that use xdg paths before posting it to hn.
solomonb 8mo ago
Thank you for the `nix app`! Being able to launch it with: nix run github:cpcloud/micasa Is super convenient. Actually we could go further and serve `micasa` via ssh: users.users.micasa = { isNormalUser = true; shell = pkgs.bashInteractive; openssh.authorizedKeys.keys = ... }; services.openssh.extraConfig = '' Match User micasa ForceCommand ${micasaPkg}/bin/micasa AllowTcpForwarding no X11Forwarding no ''; Then we could put this in a nixosModule in your flake.nix. Would you be interested in a PR which does this? services.micasa-ssh = { enable = true; authorizedKeys = [ "ssh-ed25519 AAAA..." ]; port = 2222; };
oriettaxx 8mo ago
I want MiBoat ;)
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  mibarco, I dig it. Don't have a boat, but I can imagine they're a pile of dreams, shattered and otherwise.
  - oriettaxx 7mo ago
    a lot of smart brains: best are the DIY: a lot of smart solutions and willing to share
- obloid 8mo ago
  That was exactly my first thought. Could I mod this use with boats. I already have some spreadsheets for tracking engine maintenance, etc, but this looks really cool.
- anthk 8mo ago
  "MiBarco", for consistency, altough you would need something with satellites or ham radio =)
bl_valance 8mo ago
This is pretty cool and useful. I actually might adapt it to aid me in tracking projects around my dirt bike, similar tracking events.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Might have to start mimoto...
datakazkn 8mo ago
The hallucination-in-analysis problem is real and often undersold. Pattern that works well: use the LLM only to structure already-extracted data (parse fields, normalize formats), then apply deterministic logic for anything numerical. That way the LLM is doing classification/extraction where it's reliable, and you're not trusting it to compute or compare values where it isn't.
piskov 8mo ago
Why is the text in cells truncated? Here it an important th… | Why?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Good question. Do you have a screenshot you can share?
  - piskov 8mo ago
    Literally almost every frame of the gif on your landing page: title, type, project, etc.
    - cpcloud 8mo ago
      Hard to balance the terminal font size, page styling, and desire to show something. I decided that truncation was better than sacrificing font size or spending eternity noodling on page styling. All ears if you've got any ideas.
      - piskov 7mo ago
        Content is king. Are TUIs bad with multiline word-wrap?
kadrian12 8mo ago
This is quite cool. Makes me philosophical: isn't it odd, that this is like an Excel template? Like a "domain model" template? In this case, presented nicely in a TUI that makes basic CRUD workflows work. Most SaaS companies are just that: 1) Curated domain model (stored in their cloud db) 2) Some way for users do to almost raw CRUD on the tables 3) Curated high-level domain specific workflows that do n CRUD calls underneath So many of these SaaS apps could have been a simple Excel / domain model template like Micasa. But it seems like we haven't "cracked" the perfect UI on top of relational DBs. Excel: Good: raw CRUD. Bad: too many degrees of freedom + the possibility to edit the domain model itself. That's too much for most users. TUI: Good: raw CRUD with some guardrails, limited possibility to adjust the domain model / not by accident. Keyboard shortcuts, for professionals. Bad: inaccessible for non-tech end users + hard to build good UX for high-level domain specific workflows. Full Web UI: Good: accessible for all. Great for high-level domain-specific workflows. Bad: looks and works different every time. Raw CRUD possible, but always a compromise with editable data grid libraries.
- apsurd 8mo ago
  I've always stubbornly bemoaned how everyone seems to love to work in spreadsheets. Undeniably the world's power-tool. I've never liked them, never learned to work with them, and instead spent 20 years learning to program and make my own db-backed crud interfaces. Your points are spot on. But I'd like to defend a sliver of my stubbornness about it all; a product built for a specific use or domain exports the _education_ and information architecture of that domain. Sure it's all rows and columns in a db, and a spreadsheet is just that exposed to the user, but a "product" and its creator/company gets to design and prescribe a learning experience. And I think that's the magic and the value. That's what I'm holding onto!
- iguana_shine 8mo ago
  There was once a time when tools like Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro were common. These were a database and custom GUI designed using a drag and drop editor. I don't know whether these apps ever had network server capability or if they were always offline or why they died out. It was a bit before my time
Onavo 8mo ago
If you want a more powerful to-do list, look into IBM Maximo. It's the ultimate end all be all of todoMVCs.
- BOOSTERHIDROGEN 8mo ago
  Because Maximo is used in nuclear power plants.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  The business is strong with Maximo: "Optimize asset investments with AI insights to cut lifecycle costs, align budgets and achieve your goals smarter and faster". Optimizing with insights to cut lifecycle costs? Where do I sign up??
  - Onavo 8mo ago
    They are a todolist combined with a dependency tracker and a Cron job. E.g. you own an old school Japanese car with no fancy computers. You only have a paper manual. With something like Maximo, you can turn your maintenance into a DAG and routine stuff is tied to cron. Each Todo is called a "Work order". E.g. tire rotation every 10 000 miles, oil change every 15 000 air filter swap every 2 years. Each day after you finish driving you enter into the Maximo GUI (or have an Arduino IoT sensor do it) your current mileage. The timing chain also needs to be swapped every 5 yeard, but due to a quirk of engineering, it can only be done so after the oil had been changed. Maximo automatically tracks everything, and after you are done, you have to upload a photo as proof that you have done the work. It's a very simple system at its core, basically a glorified Todo list but entire industries run on it.
    - cpcloud 7mo ago
      This is actually a pretty interesting idea, though I'm not sure how much yak shaving houses have (they definitely have some, but I think the DAG is not that deep) that tracking recurring dependency graphs is something I want to roll into micasa. In any case, I rescind my sarcasm.
stillforest 8mo ago
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insane_dreamer 8mo ago
isn't AI supposed to take care of all these home projects for me? ;) I do like it. I just hope I don't have that many things that I have to fix in my house that I need a DB to track them.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  You can also track aspirational things like renovations or other home related projects.
deleted 8mo ago
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Myzel394 8mo ago
Is there such a self hostable app available as a website? Kinda like Netbox / firefly but for your house?
tick_tock_tick 8mo ago
> Backup with cp. cp is not a method to backup a SQLite file unless you can guarantee there are zero transactions in progress. See https://sqlite.org/howtocorrupt.html#_backup_or_restore_while_a_transaction_is_active https://sqlite.org/howtocorrupt.html#_backup_or_restore_whil... for safe methods and consider switching your examples to use one of those.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Good point. I will definitely move away from cp.
indiekitai 8mo ago
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randomrainbow 8mo ago
looks cool but how is it different from google sheets?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Probably not that different. One difference is that it runs in a terminal.
drsalt 8mo ago
this is great to give upper middle class folks a sense of accomplishment.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  I suppose that's true!
dev1ycan 8mo ago
Missed chance to call it Mikasa
eclipticplane 8mo ago
I found a bug. In the docs (https://micasa.dev/docs/guide/dashboard/ https://micasa.dev/docs/guide/dashboard/), it says "Active Projects: 2" but should say "Active Projects: 20".
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Projects have statuses, and not all of those statuses are active. Some projects are in the planning phase, for example.
sourc3 8mo ago
This is amazing and exactly the problem we have been trying to solve with a friend. We also considered the terminal but people give up on maintenance because they forgot to buy that replacement filter, or never got a reminder when they actually had time. Also, it is not uncommon for families to divide these as chores among different family members. I personally love the TUI but I also know that for most homeowners this is too “advanced”. This is why we built our solution as a simple web app [1] Great project! Best of luck. [1] www.wellrun.house
barbs 8mo ago
The constantly changing "Frequently asked/entertained/daydreamed questions" bit constantly changing keeps moving everything below it up and down and it's really annoying. I am viewing it on a particularly small phone, however.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Yeah, I spent a bit of time trying it out on a mobile device, but nothing particularly small, so this isn't surprising. Suggestions for how to address it? Would love a GIF or screenshot in a GitHub issue if you're up for it!
  - barbs 7mo ago
    I mean...you could just not have it changing constantly? It seems pretty unnecessary. Here's a screen recording from my phone: https://imgur.com/a/snw8qbc https://imgur.com/a/snw8qbc
atlgator 8mo ago
This is the kind of tool that sounds niche until you own a house for a few years and realize you have no idea when anything was last serviced. "Single SQLite file, no cloud" is the right call. My home maintenance system is currently a mix of sticky notes and regret.
saverill 8mo ago
Is there a way to run the SQL commands directly, or easily see summed column values? I have the AI that can run it but can't seem to find a way to sum the columns in the TUI, just running them on the file externally. Would be nice to be able to Sum columns in the program especially conditionally based on the filters that are active
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Not currently a feature, but open to it!
khana 8mo ago
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bazmattaz 8mo ago
This is really cool. At the moment we use a Trello board to track all of our house jobs, projects, reminders and issues. Then we have Home Assistant for all of our sensors and such. My only concern about something like this is the WAF. My wife uses Trello. She would likely not use terminal. Also she only uses a phone so lack of mobile app or website is another blocker. But it’s a cool app
hajix007 8mo ago
The PDF-to-structured-data piece is actually the killer feature here. Getting quotes from contractors is already painful... half of them come as scanned PDFs with zero consistent structure. If you can reliably extract line items, scope, and vendor info from those and link them to a project, that's where you'd actually save real time. The TUI is nice but that pipeline is what I'd use this for.
gchokov 8mo ago
Why not Excel?
carpe__diem 8mo ago
Great project and very practical use-case. One thing that would make this extra trustworthy for day-to-day use is a strict dry-run/preview mode: show exactly what fields/rows would change before writing state or triggering integrations. Also +1 for stable entity IDs and an append-only history table (timestamp + source + diff summary). That makes rollback and auditing much easier when automations or scripts misbehave.
TabTwo 8mo ago
Nice. I just use org-mode + lots of recurring tasks. Like car.org has monthly tasks for check fluids, clean inside, clean outside. In April and October theres a task to remind me to change tires and as I'm German a task to remind me yearly to check the first aid kit (you get a fine if its expired and they spot it when they stop you). So, almost every appliance has its org-file with routines. Same for me and my family, check vaccinations, see the dentist ... So, if you are already using org, theres no need for an additional tool. Plus, its all text, just throw it in your git. Also, there's tools like beorg to have your org on your iPhone.
gverrilla 8mo ago
A question from a novice: can't we have clicking on terminals?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  We can! I just haven't thought through the interaction yet.
  - gverrilla 8mo ago
    I'll be watching! Seems very nice!
mtsolitary 8mo ago
My first thought with apps like this is always: couldn’t you do this in org mode?
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Probably, but who has time for org mode? :)
oatlgr 8mo ago
What I like about this is the inclusion of the Claude code pieces. I know there is a lot out there, but seeing a project that uses AI to produce features of this standard is great to see. I'd be interested in learning how the author developed features while building this out and how effective Claude/AI was while performing this building. Heck, I'd watch something where the author demonstrates their workflow. Nice job.
goeric 8mo ago
I love this! I've made a web version powered by your data layer and REST API. Let me know what you think. https://github.com/goeric/webcasa https://github.com/goeric/webcasa
NickJLange 8mo ago
Love the idea, agree with most of the feedback here. Suggestion: > Worth a PR to swap out SQLite for Jira/Linear? Or have a job that moves the work there? I can then maybe save $50 on that window replacement by allowing local business to search/ bid on my home maintenance Jira queue (versus spam mail in the physical inbox) ducks
artzev_ 8mo ago
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igrope 8mo ago
I'm no developer but I love the terminal. I would love to have something like this for other use cases, such as medical. I would imagine the app to have entities such as medical procedures, tests, diagnosis, doc visits, along with all the associated medical artifacts such as prescriptions, and test reports.
marcuscodes 8mo ago
Great work!

657 points by cpcloud 8mo ago

HoldOnAMinute 8mo ago

That is a beautiful TUI!

hunterirving 8mo ago

Pretty slick! And I really enjoyed the interactive, destructible house at the top :-)

oidar 8mo ago

Your quotes are great.

beardsciences 8mo ago

This is looking pretty good. Going to run some sample data runs + might try this out.

smartmic 8mo ago

> Not sure what house would last that long Not necessarily houses, but there are some old buildings around almost everywhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_extant_buildings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_extant_building...

yomismoaqui 8mo ago

You can also run directly: go run github.com/cpcloud/micasa/cmd/micasa@latest

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

mrpf1ster 8mo ago

Looks good - I like the TUI a lot. The only thing with that type of interface is that there is no chance my wife would use it via the terminal. It would be cool if there was a web UI as well - so other members of the household could access and use it.

cheema33 8mo ago
This. If I am the only one who can use it and only from one computer, it would be entirely useless for my needs. I have several computers and also family members who would need access to that data. A Google Docs spreadsheet would be a better tool for my specific needs I think.
- fix4fun 8mo ago
  I think the same. Why overcomplicate and just use some online Spreadsheet like from Google Docs. The same or even less effort.
  - subscribed 8mo ago
    Quite clearly not the same (as in Google Docs will provide maybe 10% in terms of feature parity).

aeve890 8mo ago

The testimonials cracked me up. I'm still managing my house maintenance on a spreadsheet like an absolute barbarian. I mean I was, until now. Does it come in Catpuccin?

cpcloud 8mo ago
I hadn't considered theming it differently, though in theory it should be adaptive to light versus dark terminals. I only use dark terminals and I couldn't be bothered to test that before there were any users, so if it doesn't work, I will happily task it out to an agent! Now I kind of want custom themes...

fudged71 8mo ago

I think/hope the whole "home manager" category is going to take off soon. On a cost basis, it no longer makes sense--practically--not to use visual/text/audio intelligence to manage such a large asset. We just don't have the user-friendly mass-market interfaces for it just yet. It's possible to scan every manual, every insurance policy, ingest every local bylaw. It's possible to take a video of your home and transform it into a semantically segmented Gsplat of [nearly] everything you own. It's possible to do sensor fusion of all the outward facing cameras from your home. And obviously agents like OpenClaw can decide what to do with all of this (inventory, security, optimization, etc).

embedding-shape 8mo ago
> It's possible to do sensor fusion of all the outward facing cameras from your home Is that legal though? I'm guessing it the US it might be, given the amount of cameras of public places you can see in various communities, but wonder how common that is. Where I live (Spain) it's not legal to just stick a camera on your house and record public places, you need to put the camera in a way so you're only filming your private property or similar.
- matthewfcarlson 8mo ago
  The US gives you no expectation of privacy in public places and private property is generally do what you want. It gets murkier if your cameras are pointed at other private property (your neighbors). Not a legal expert just what I’ve heard.
  - thfuran 8mo ago
    As I understand it (which probably isn’t well), expectation of privacy on private spaces in the US gets pretty wonky. Like being in plain view on a front lawn wouldn’t have expectation of privacy but being behind a fence would even if the fence doesn’t do a good job of blocking sight lines.
- subscribed 8mo ago
  I've got several cameras outside my house, but these recording 24/7 are adjusted to capture my property only (garden, front drive, entrances etc) That's legal. If someone gets recorded that's because they left the public land and entered mine.

wolvoleo 8mo ago

Thinking of this it would be amazing to have a TUI for home assistant. It's already so good at doing all the nuts and bolts of control and interacting with everything. But its UI is super heavy loaded JavaScript. It doesn't run well on old tablets either for this reason, sadly.

jefurii 8mo ago
I would love to have a TUI for Home Assistant!
sublinear 8mo ago
There's a CLI [1], LLM API [2], and REST API [3]. [1]: https://github.com/home-assistant-ecosystem/home-assistant-cli https://github.com/home-assistant-ecosystem/home-assistant-c... [2]: https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/core/llm/ https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/core/llm/ [3]: https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/api/rest/ https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/api/rest/
dmd 8mo ago
My overall philosophy for (my quite extensive) Home Assistant setup is “amy time a human interacts with the HA UI in any way whatsoever, that is a failure.” I don’t want dashboards, I don’t want a user interface at ALL other than for setting up new automation. The point of HA for me is the house should feel like the correct things happen by magic (and should be essentially unobtrusive and natural).
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  I've honestly never explored HA. Is there a world where HA obviates micasa. That seems like a win, at least in terms of not having yet another piece of software duplicating an existing thing.
- wolvoleo 8mo ago
  Oh that's not my philosophy at all. I don't like too much automation because I'm very fussy as to what I want at one moment. It all depends on my mood which home assistant doesn't know. Sometimes when I enter a room I want the lights on, other times I don't, stuff like that. Like when the curtains are open and I'm walking around half naked. And sometimes I just like the dark and sometimes I need bright lights. Sometimes I need heat and sometimes sitting in 16 degrees (C) is totally fine. Yeah I'm weird I know :) Also I'm really chaotic in terms of schedule. My mood and behaviour changes by the day. I use it more as a monitoring and control tool. Not saying your way is bad, it's more as HA is intended. But I'm just saying it won't work for me.

asgarovf 8mo ago

Looks really cool. Agree on comments related to TUI. Maybe a simple interface running locally would be better.

reconnecting 8mo ago

Any ideas why Claude forces TUI application development?

max8539 8mo ago
It’s easy then run a web server for a web UI, but it still looks better than a regular CLI
cpcloud 8mo ago
Maybe it's that TUIs feel manageable with an agent. They can be well scoped without a ton of effort, which at least for me makes me a tiny bit more comfortable letting them write code.
- reconnecting 8mo ago
  It feels like something to do with front-end development limitations. I noticed a wave of TUI applications, all written by Claude from the initial commit.
  - big_toast 8mo ago
    I started a golang TUI last summer with Codex Web/Cloud because it felt more like a closed loop. It was able to manage pretty well end to end. Every additional complexity hop probably increases the attrition rate for successful development, so TUIs end up the most frequent bean to bar currently possible for hobbyists. I really wanted an iOS app. I considered a web app, or a localhost app. Each additional hurdle (containers, packages, builds, testing, running, OSes, browser integration, computer use) feels like upping the required power of the models.
efficax 8mo ago
It's pretty good at building TUIs. Although it's not bad at Swift/macOS either. But really I think the problem is that we don't have a great solution right now for cross platform native UIs that isn't a WebView (or entire Chrome browser), which doesn't feel very native. But every platform has a pretty good terminal now, even Windows.

iamjackg 8mo ago

Heck yeah! Love the VisiData shoutout. Echoing other people's desire for a web UI, mostly so I don't have to be the sole Maintainer of the Truth as the only resident household technomancer. EDIT: alternatively, exposing the data/functionality via MCP or similar would allow me to connect this to an agent using Home Assistant Voice, so anybody in the house could ask for changes or add new information.

cpcloud 8mo ago
This is super interesting. I do have a GitHub issue for LLM-powered data entry: "Add a landscaping project to do the backyard. Still ideating, thinking a budget of $40k."
defaultcompany 8mo ago
This makes me want to use visidata for my databases.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  Funny enough, Saul and I recently hacked on getting visidata's Ibis integration updated, so you can use visidata for poking around databases of any size, really. You might like that, but also visidata has non-ibis support for SQLite I believe.

atonse 8mo ago

This looks awesome but I think I might still prefer to have an agent make these changes. Not sure though. In general, I love the juxtaposition of the most advanced computer technology ever (AI) causing an explosion in one of the OLDEST computer technology we've ever had (terminals). I spend most of my day in a terminal now. It's just funny.

cpcloud 8mo ago
> This looks awesome but I think I might still prefer to have an agent make these changes. Not sure though. Not entirely sure what you mean here, but the next big feature for micasa is an autopopulation pipeline. Upload a quote PDF and populate the project, quote, and vendor tables. It might not be viable ultimately, but I would love to see how far I can get. Overkill? Definitely.
- atonse 8mo ago
  Yep that's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't think it's overkill. It feels very natural and filling out forms feels archaic to me (unless it's a "edit this quickly" where that's almost always faster than asking an agent.) So I've been building a full piece of software to manage my small business. And it looks like traditional software (forms, tables, etc). But every single thing also has an MCP tool. So then I find myself just talking to the agent especially as an input mechanism way more than clicking around and editing a form. I'm just saying, as an input method, I think forms, TUIs, etc will be good as a backup. Over time, as you've outlined, we'd just say "here's a PDF, figure it out" and the agent just inputs the right values into the right fields. That's how I've approached my run-my-business app. I have models/tables for clients, purchase orders, invoices, support tasks, everything. But my interaction is more like "Add me to all the active projects, set my cost rate to __" and it'll run 15 MCP calls and put the data where it belongs. Or I'll ask "what invoices are way overdue?" and it'll run the MCP calls to get it, even though I have pretty dashboards. Glad to see you're already thinking of it.

thomascountz 8mo ago

files are stored as BLOBs inside the SQLite database, so cp micasa.db backup.db backs up everything – no sidecar files SQLite is just so cool. Anyway, this whole project looks amazing. I can't wait to kick tires (and then track when I last changed my tires... wait, can it do that?!)

cpcloud 8mo ago
One of my first thoughts after getting a working prototype was: "Doesn't the car battery need to be replaced?" So, yeah. This would obviously be called micarro.
- kayge 8mo ago
  And for doctors appointments... micuerpo!
simjohan 8mo ago
Cool talk with Richard Hipp, the creator of SQLite: https://corecursive.com/066-sqlite-with-richard-hipp/ https://corecursive.com/066-sqlite-with-richard-hipp/

hilti 8mo ago

Wow! This is so cool. I really need to get my hands on TUI. It seems to be a growing trend. Maybe it's a stupid question, because I know about family members that have never opened a terminal - can a TUI app bundled with an icon to simply click and start it?

cpcloud 8mo ago
> can a TUI app bundled with an icon to simply click and start it? Almost certainly. I personally don't use clicky things to the extent that I am able to avoid them, so I can't describe the specific mechanism or name any of the nouns/tools involved, but I'm pretty sure this exists.
- cyberge99 8mo ago
  You just create a shortcut to the binary in the dock or desktop on macos.

whiplash451 8mo ago

This looks so much better than most project/product management tools out there. In my wildest dreams, your project would turn into a jira that devs love.

amelius 8mo ago

Why not keep everything in a simple text file?

cpcloud 8mo ago
I'm not sure if you're asking whether micasa should use a text file as its format, or if you're suggesting that a text file can be a substitute for micasa.
- amelius 8mo ago
  The latter. I do things in my house too infrequently that I don't want to have to re-learn the UI of a tool again and again. But maybe I'm not the target audience.
  - cpcloud 8mo ago
    I often find myself wanting answers to questions that require linking data, and I also want to codify those links somehow, so a single-file, row-oriented database seemed like the appropriate way to get that. You might actually be able to get away with less structure and just dumps thoughts and ideas, statuses, and documents into $AI and have it generate ad-hoc reports. In which case, a text file might be the right interface. Kind of a non-answer, I realize. I suppose the answer is: because I had a relatively specific idea of what I wanted to build and I didn't consider not building it.
subscribed 8mo ago
Why use Dropbox if rsync / FTP exists :) For the features. Text file has none of them.

nkrisc 8mo ago

This is basically what I want, but with a UI that non-techie spouse wouldn’t mind using. Though that doesn't seem to be your intended direction, which is fair. We use Apple Reminders for grocery lists and Paprika for recipes, but something a little more organized than just a shared note for these sorts of things would be great. I will probably check it out for myself though.

bazmattaz 8mo ago
I have the same stakeholder requirements so we use Trello to track everything in our house

mattw2121 8mo ago

I created a basic site to do some similar things as well: https://homemaintlist.com/ https://homemaintlist.com/ Need to revisit it and update it based on a lot of feedback I've received.

cpcloud 8mo ago
I definitely waffled a bit on multi-property support, but decided against it for initial launch. Multi-property avid terminal users seems even more niche!

max8539 8mo ago

Looks nice, I like this TUI aesthetic, but I’m not sure I could use it on a daily basis. A self-hosted app or phone app might be more convenient

cpcloud 8mo ago
100% on the phone app. Maybe the web app is the phone app? Dunno. Being able to enter information as close to receiving as possible seems key actually. I'll probably poke on this soon.
- max8539 8mo ago
  It could be a native mobile app, but in that case you’d need to think about platforms, the App Store, and so on. A progressive web app could be a nice alternative: just add the website icon to your phone, and you can open it in seconds. The app could be self-hosted on a home server, and solutions like Tailscale would let you easily access it outside the house as well. A big plus is that you can open it on all your devices and have a unified database across them. With a web app, you could even keep the TUI aesthetic - just style it like a CLI interface.

AstroBen 8mo ago

TUIs have gotten so good lately. I love the design on this

kylehotchkiss 8mo ago

The same way that Gen Z wants shitty blurry photos of everything, I want more terminal UIs for everyday life. AI isn't going to give us beautiful native swift apps, it just gives us more garbage electron ones. So TUI would be a better aspiration I guess.

aeblyve 8mo ago

I feel like a lot of these types of apps could just be spreadsheets. Maybe a "smart" spreadsheet like Grist[0] executing Python code. Am I off-base there? [0] https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core

iugtmkbdfil834 8mo ago
I will say that I am slowly becoming a convert to 'talk to data' approach. Still, it is not without its flaws. At the end of the day, it still requires the user to update stuff and, from experience, this is where I fail and render all those project apps useless..for me specifically. It sucks, because it sounds like what I really need is for someone to track it for me so that i can just review it if needed.
cpcloud 8mo ago
Probably right. My brain is probably stuck in old-man spreadsheet land and I did not explore any new horizons that might have obviated micasa. That said, I also didn't want to invest a bunch of time in developing a domain specific app using spreadsheets as the API, I wanted to invest a bunch of time developing a domain specific app using AI. Might end up being a choice I regret!
- aeblyve 8mo ago
  That's all fair. It is a cool piece of work nonetheless. For example I am thinking, what if I wanted to hook up my micasa instance to some other arbitrary self-hosted service? If it's an App that means bespoke code, with a spreadsheet stack it is trivial.
deeth_starr_v 8mo ago
I agree. While I really like the idea of being able to query some of this data, it's another system to maintain. I have a system where I use a calendar, physical folder, and notes/folder in the cloud. Call me lazy.

blaze33 8mo ago

I love the logo, go ahead and click it!

moralestapia 8mo ago

Wow, this took me BACK! My first computer was a 486, I was running MS-DOS (iirc) and there was an app that did just that with a very similar (Text)UI, anyone else used it/remembers the name?

numbers 8mo ago

I love TUIs and I love the way this looks and the concept behind it, but often I'm doing household stuff on my phone because I'm walking around checking on things or just taking photos of things.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Yes, one of the other comments alluded to this as well. I am also in this boat, so other than bizarroland LLM ingest stuff, I'll probably work on this next. Having never written a mobile app, I'm sure it'll be fine.

oulipo2 8mo ago

Cool! Although I'd rather use Obsidian with the Tables stuff, so I get everything in my UI with photos, and I can share with mobile

_neil 8mo ago
I'm building a Home vault like this currently. With the new obsidian cli, you can do a lot more with letting an agent manage things and update dashboards, etc. for you.

jbonatakis 8mo ago

Just want to say, I appreciate your work on Ibis. I’ve been looking into building sort of a dbt-esque alternative on top of it and noticed how involved you’ve been with its development. I think it’s a cool piece of tech that deserves more attention.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Thanks! Curious to see what you build with it.

matthewfcarlson 8mo ago

I built something somewhat similar to this that's web app based (honeydew) but it's much more focused on DIY and doesn't include any of the quote/contractor stuff. It's absolutely focused on powering through a huge pile of todos from a home inspection with dependency tracking as well as remembering stuff (when was the last time you empty the washing machine filter). It practice it alternates between annoying thing I dismiss the notifications from or use obsessively. Doesn't seem to be much in between

cbull 8mo ago
Do you have a link to the app? There's way too many hits searching for honeydew online...

icar 8mo ago

Pretty cool mise use -g github:cpcloud/micasa and just start typing. I wish it had metric units and was translated, though!

cpcloud 8mo ago
Nice. I would definitely consider making it locale sensitive.

gleenn 8mo ago

Someone has a sense of humor in the reviews section: "I’ve been using the demo data for three weeks. I don’t own a house. — Aspiring Homeowner"

kayge 8mo ago
I didn't see that review in the 4 shown in that section until I refreshed the page... there are some good ones in there, including a Hacker News shoutout :D
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
avarun 8mo ago
I guarantee that's an AI-written joke.
- fragmede 8mo ago
  Does it make it less funny? Do you find yourself laughing, but then you get soured because although the chuckle that was made was genuine, it came about from something that was created by a computer, so we have to hate ourselves for chuckling. Is that how it works?
  - cpcloud 8mo ago
    Now THAT was funny.
- cpcloud 8mo ago
  It is.
- aitchnyu 8mo ago
  Did I miss the innovation in AI humor? I searched for AI written jokes and they all seem like Markhov chain output.
  - 7mo ago

sergiomattei 8mo ago

This is probably the most beautiful homepage + docs combo I’ve ever seen. The copy is awesome too. It feels human. Great work.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Much appreciated. Definitely A LOT of back and forth on the copy, design was actually very few iterations. Docs of course have their own rule in AGENTS.md, since Claude seems only slightly less likely than your average software engineer to forget about documentation. :)

marxisttemp 8mo ago

I wouldn’t want to use a terminal-only tool with no affordances for cloud sync for home management, something that inherently is likely to involve all members of a household who are likely not all proficient with terminal usage. You should ask your LLM to make something that can run as a home server and have different clients. I also personally wouldn’t trust the database of all my important home info to a vibe-coded program.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Reasonable stance.

small_model 8mo ago

It think this could be extended to other areas, like car (services, new lease etc), health (dentist, doctor etc), vacations, tax, banking... Basically a personal assistant like app that handles "life".

cpcloud 8mo ago
Yep, I have a few open issues about this. Cars and tools were next on my list.

Keekgette 8mo ago

[flagged]

stronglikedan 8mo ago

> When do I need to clean the dishwasher filter? Dishwashers have filters??!?

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
globular-toast 8mo ago
They do in Europe. They have water softeners too that you have to fill with salt. Don't believe it's the case around the world. More than you ever wanted to know about dishwashers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04
burkaman 8mo ago
Many have removable filters that you're supposed to clean periodically. If there's nothing obviously removable in yours then it might have a "self-cleaning" system that would be harder to take out and clean yourself.
someothherguyy 8mo ago
yes, and the answer is every so often
CobrastanJorji 8mo ago
Wait until I tell you about your water heater's sacrificial anode. NOBODY replaces those.
- mfkp 8mo ago
  I got an electric one so I never need to remember to replace mine!
  - efreak 7mo ago
    I think the electric ones need to be replaced eventually too, not not nearly as often.

mgaunard 8mo ago

why not just use a spreadsheet?

cpcloud 8mo ago
Valid question. Mostly because I wanted linking and couldn't be bothered to lookup vlookup. Naturally, the first alternative approach I considered was build a terminal app.

interroboink 8mo ago

I didn't see it on the feature list, but it might be nice to allow it to run as a cron job and send email for reminders. These days, most mobile phones have an associated email like your-phone-number@vztext.com (depending on carrier), so you can send yourself text messages about chores and whatnot. Or, perhaps just as good, have a way for it to dump out data as json, and could be consumed by some other send-the-email tool. There is the "-json" sqlite option, of course, but I'm not sure if your schema is meant to be stable. I have a perl script for reminders like this that has been super handy over the 10+ years I've been using it. Never bit the bullet to put it in a nice UI or have a backing DB like this project, though.

cpcloud 8mo ago
There's definitely some scope and appetite for some notifications/reminders here. I haven't thought about the UX here, but the ingest pipeline + automatic reminders seems like a killer combo!

stephen_cagle 8mo ago

I think this is neat. I use org-mode for pretty much everything, which has all of these features I think, but sometimes there is nothing more motivating than a quick responsive UI to actually do something. This looks motivational. My only pushback is using sqlite. I am a big fan of just using simple (structured) text files that can be edited by hand when needed. Your computer is more than capable of doing all the joining/querying/aggregating/whatever with the text file itself rather than relying on a database. I personally find these sort of file structures comforting as it means they can be easily modified in unsupported ways.

basketbla 8mo ago

Is there even a Wichita, Arkansas?

cpcloud 8mo ago
Probably not. The demo data is fake. Mostly there to test drive it with ephemeral data.

twostorytower 8mo ago

Very cool! When on docs column, and pressing e to edit, it seems to just take you to edit the entire project, with no way to edit docs (which I am not sure what that even is supposed to be, I assume a way to attach files?).

cpcloud 8mo ago
This UX was a bit iffy for me, but I thought I'd experiment with it and decided to go with it. When you edit an ID column, it opens a form editor to edit the entire row at once. The thinking was to make all columns editable _in some way_, but ID columns are autogenerated and thus not designed to be directly manipulated. I thought: since the ID represents a unique entity, in this case document, then it made some sense to make editing that editing the whole row. That said, this is a bug even with the explanation I just gave: editing on the ID column of Docs doesn't show all the row's data in the form. Will fix that shortly.

killa_kyle 8mo ago

This is dope.

edgarvaldes 8mo ago

Super cool. Installed. It would be great if the f and b keys for moving between navigation elements circle back to the first element once reached its end.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Heh, I actually turned that off because I kept getting confused about where I was. Perhaps there's a better UX there, or better styling that would make me less confused and keep the nav wrapping.

open592 8mo ago

This is awesome, love the sense of humor and just downloaded it and started adding data. Only small piece of feedback is that I would use `$VISUAL` when opening the editor. When I tried to use `Ctrl+e` it opened nano which I haven't used in ages. Edit: Oh looks like you use `$EDITOR` - I just didn't have that set. Awesome! These are the projects which make me love Show HN!

cpcloud 8mo ago
Thanks for the feedback! Did you hit this in the Docs open flow? micasa will call xdg-open (linux)/open (mac)/cmd (windows) when opening a document, but there's nothing that's explicitly opening a text editor.
- open592 8mo ago
  Sorry for the late reply, this was for when you're adding a renovation for instance and there is a section for "notes" - you can hit `ctrl+e` and it will open in an editor. Looks like it doesn't register `$VISUAL` but does use `$EDITOR` not sure if that is a `xdg-open` behavior though.

tremarley 8mo ago

This looks incredible

eiginn 8mo ago

Praise be to projects that use xdg paths before posting it to hn.

solomonb 8mo ago

Thank you for the `nix app`! Being able to launch it with: nix run github:cpcloud/micasa Is super convenient. Actually we could go further and serve `micasa` via ssh: users.users.micasa = { isNormalUser = true; shell = pkgs.bashInteractive; openssh.authorizedKeys.keys = ... }; services.openssh.extraConfig = '' Match User micasa ForceCommand ${micasaPkg}/bin/micasa AllowTcpForwarding no X11Forwarding no ''; Then we could put this in a nixosModule in your flake.nix. Would you be interested in a PR which does this? services.micasa-ssh = { enable = true; authorizedKeys = [ "ssh-ed25519 AAAA..." ]; port = 2222; };

oriettaxx 8mo ago

I want MiBoat ;)

cpcloud 8mo ago
mibarco, I dig it. Don't have a boat, but I can imagine they're a pile of dreams, shattered and otherwise.
- oriettaxx 7mo ago
  a lot of smart brains: best are the DIY: a lot of smart solutions and willing to share
obloid 8mo ago
That was exactly my first thought. Could I mod this use with boats. I already have some spreadsheets for tracking engine maintenance, etc, but this looks really cool.
anthk 8mo ago
"MiBarco", for consistency, altough you would need something with satellites or ham radio =)

bl_valance 8mo ago

This is pretty cool and useful. I actually might adapt it to aid me in tracking projects around my dirt bike, similar tracking events.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Might have to start mimoto...

datakazkn 8mo ago

The hallucination-in-analysis problem is real and often undersold. Pattern that works well: use the LLM only to structure already-extracted data (parse fields, normalize formats), then apply deterministic logic for anything numerical. That way the LLM is doing classification/extraction where it's reliable, and you're not trusting it to compute or compare values where it isn't.

piskov 8mo ago

Why is the text in cells truncated? Here it an important th… | Why?

cpcloud 8mo ago
Good question. Do you have a screenshot you can share?
- piskov 8mo ago
  Literally almost every frame of the gif on your landing page: title, type, project, etc.
  - cpcloud 8mo ago
    Hard to balance the terminal font size, page styling, and desire to show something. I decided that truncation was better than sacrificing font size or spending eternity noodling on page styling. All ears if you've got any ideas.
    - piskov 7mo ago
      Content is king. Are TUIs bad with multiline word-wrap?

kadrian12 8mo ago

This is quite cool. Makes me philosophical: isn't it odd, that this is like an Excel template? Like a "domain model" template? In this case, presented nicely in a TUI that makes basic CRUD workflows work. Most SaaS companies are just that: 1) Curated domain model (stored in their cloud db) 2) Some way for users do to almost raw CRUD on the tables 3) Curated high-level domain specific workflows that do n CRUD calls underneath So many of these SaaS apps could have been a simple Excel / domain model template like Micasa. But it seems like we haven't "cracked" the perfect UI on top of relational DBs. Excel: Good: raw CRUD. Bad: too many degrees of freedom + the possibility to edit the domain model itself. That's too much for most users. TUI: Good: raw CRUD with some guardrails, limited possibility to adjust the domain model / not by accident. Keyboard shortcuts, for professionals. Bad: inaccessible for non-tech end users + hard to build good UX for high-level domain specific workflows. Full Web UI: Good: accessible for all. Great for high-level domain-specific workflows. Bad: looks and works different every time. Raw CRUD possible, but always a compromise with editable data grid libraries.

apsurd 8mo ago
I've always stubbornly bemoaned how everyone seems to love to work in spreadsheets. Undeniably the world's power-tool. I've never liked them, never learned to work with them, and instead spent 20 years learning to program and make my own db-backed crud interfaces. Your points are spot on. But I'd like to defend a sliver of my stubbornness about it all; a product built for a specific use or domain exports the _education_ and information architecture of that domain. Sure it's all rows and columns in a db, and a spreadsheet is just that exposed to the user, but a "product" and its creator/company gets to design and prescribe a learning experience. And I think that's the magic and the value. That's what I'm holding onto!
iguana_shine 8mo ago
There was once a time when tools like Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro were common. These were a database and custom GUI designed using a drag and drop editor. I don't know whether these apps ever had network server capability or if they were always offline or why they died out. It was a bit before my time

Onavo 8mo ago

If you want a more powerful to-do list, look into IBM Maximo. It's the ultimate end all be all of todoMVCs.

BOOSTERHIDROGEN 8mo ago
Because Maximo is used in nuclear power plants.
cpcloud 8mo ago
The business is strong with Maximo: "Optimize asset investments with AI insights to cut lifecycle costs, align budgets and achieve your goals smarter and faster". Optimizing with insights to cut lifecycle costs? Where do I sign up??
- Onavo 8mo ago
  They are a todolist combined with a dependency tracker and a Cron job. E.g. you own an old school Japanese car with no fancy computers. You only have a paper manual. With something like Maximo, you can turn your maintenance into a DAG and routine stuff is tied to cron. Each Todo is called a "Work order". E.g. tire rotation every 10 000 miles, oil change every 15 000 air filter swap every 2 years. Each day after you finish driving you enter into the Maximo GUI (or have an Arduino IoT sensor do it) your current mileage. The timing chain also needs to be swapped every 5 yeard, but due to a quirk of engineering, it can only be done so after the oil had been changed. Maximo automatically tracks everything, and after you are done, you have to upload a photo as proof that you have done the work. It's a very simple system at its core, basically a glorified Todo list but entire industries run on it.
  - cpcloud 7mo ago
    This is actually a pretty interesting idea, though I'm not sure how much yak shaving houses have (they definitely have some, but I think the DAG is not that deep) that tracking recurring dependency graphs is something I want to roll into micasa. In any case, I rescind my sarcasm.

stillforest 8mo ago

[dead]

insane_dreamer 8mo ago

isn't AI supposed to take care of all these home projects for me? ;) I do like it. I just hope I don't have that many things that I have to fix in my house that I need a DB to track them.

cpcloud 8mo ago
You can also track aspirational things like renovations or other home related projects.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

Myzel394 8mo ago

Is there such a self hostable app available as a website? Kinda like Netbox / firefly but for your house?

tick_tock_tick 8mo ago

> Backup with cp. cp is not a method to backup a SQLite file unless you can guarantee there are zero transactions in progress. See https://sqlite.org/howtocorrupt.html#_backup_or_restore_while_a_transaction_is_active https://sqlite.org/howtocorrupt.html#_backup_or_restore_whil... for safe methods and consider switching your examples to use one of those.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Good point. I will definitely move away from cp.

indiekitai 8mo ago

[dead]

randomrainbow 8mo ago

looks cool but how is it different from google sheets?

cpcloud 8mo ago
Probably not that different. One difference is that it runs in a terminal.

drsalt 8mo ago

this is great to give upper middle class folks a sense of accomplishment.

cpcloud 8mo ago
I suppose that's true!

dev1ycan 8mo ago

Missed chance to call it Mikasa

eclipticplane 8mo ago

I found a bug. In the docs (https://micasa.dev/docs/guide/dashboard/ https://micasa.dev/docs/guide/dashboard/), it says "Active Projects: 2" but should say "Active Projects: 20".

cpcloud 8mo ago
Projects have statuses, and not all of those statuses are active. Some projects are in the planning phase, for example.

sourc3 8mo ago

This is amazing and exactly the problem we have been trying to solve with a friend. We also considered the terminal but people give up on maintenance because they forgot to buy that replacement filter, or never got a reminder when they actually had time. Also, it is not uncommon for families to divide these as chores among different family members. I personally love the TUI but I also know that for most homeowners this is too “advanced”. This is why we built our solution as a simple web app [1] Great project! Best of luck. [1] www.wellrun.house

barbs 8mo ago

The constantly changing "Frequently asked/entertained/daydreamed questions" bit constantly changing keeps moving everything below it up and down and it's really annoying. I am viewing it on a particularly small phone, however.

cpcloud 8mo ago
Yeah, I spent a bit of time trying it out on a mobile device, but nothing particularly small, so this isn't surprising. Suggestions for how to address it? Would love a GIF or screenshot in a GitHub issue if you're up for it!
- barbs 7mo ago
  I mean...you could just not have it changing constantly? It seems pretty unnecessary. Here's a screen recording from my phone: https://imgur.com/a/snw8qbc https://imgur.com/a/snw8qbc

atlgator 8mo ago

This is the kind of tool that sounds niche until you own a house for a few years and realize you have no idea when anything was last serviced. "Single SQLite file, no cloud" is the right call. My home maintenance system is currently a mix of sticky notes and regret.

saverill 8mo ago

Is there a way to run the SQL commands directly, or easily see summed column values? I have the AI that can run it but can't seem to find a way to sum the columns in the TUI, just running them on the file externally. Would be nice to be able to Sum columns in the program especially conditionally based on the filters that are active

cpcloud 8mo ago
Not currently a feature, but open to it!

khana 8mo ago

[dead]

bazmattaz 8mo ago

This is really cool. At the moment we use a Trello board to track all of our house jobs, projects, reminders and issues. Then we have Home Assistant for all of our sensors and such. My only concern about something like this is the WAF. My wife uses Trello. She would likely not use terminal. Also she only uses a phone so lack of mobile app or website is another blocker. But it’s a cool app

hajix007 8mo ago

The PDF-to-structured-data piece is actually the killer feature here. Getting quotes from contractors is already painful... half of them come as scanned PDFs with zero consistent structure. If you can reliably extract line items, scope, and vendor info from those and link them to a project, that's where you'd actually save real time. The TUI is nice but that pipeline is what I'd use this for.

gchokov 8mo ago

Why not Excel?

carpe__diem 8mo ago

Great project and very practical use-case. One thing that would make this extra trustworthy for day-to-day use is a strict dry-run/preview mode: show exactly what fields/rows would change before writing state or triggering integrations. Also +1 for stable entity IDs and an append-only history table (timestamp + source + diff summary). That makes rollback and auditing much easier when automations or scripts misbehave.

TabTwo 8mo ago

Nice. I just use org-mode + lots of recurring tasks. Like car.org has monthly tasks for check fluids, clean inside, clean outside. In April and October theres a task to remind me to change tires and as I'm German a task to remind me yearly to check the first aid kit (you get a fine if its expired and they spot it when they stop you). So, almost every appliance has its org-file with routines. Same for me and my family, check vaccinations, see the dentist ... So, if you are already using org, theres no need for an additional tool. Plus, its all text, just throw it in your git. Also, there's tools like beorg to have your org on your iPhone.

gverrilla 8mo ago

A question from a novice: can't we have clicking on terminals?

cpcloud 8mo ago
We can! I just haven't thought through the interaction yet.
- gverrilla 8mo ago
  I'll be watching! Seems very nice!

mtsolitary 8mo ago

My first thought with apps like this is always: couldn’t you do this in org mode?

cpcloud 8mo ago
Probably, but who has time for org mode? :)

oatlgr 8mo ago

What I like about this is the inclusion of the Claude code pieces. I know there is a lot out there, but seeing a project that uses AI to produce features of this standard is great to see. I'd be interested in learning how the author developed features while building this out and how effective Claude/AI was while performing this building. Heck, I'd watch something where the author demonstrates their workflow. Nice job.

goeric 8mo ago

I love this! I've made a web version powered by your data layer and REST API. Let me know what you think. https://github.com/goeric/webcasa https://github.com/goeric/webcasa

NickJLange 8mo ago

Love the idea, agree with most of the feedback here. Suggestion: > Worth a PR to swap out SQLite for Jira/Linear? Or have a job that moves the work there? I can then maybe save $50 on that window replacement by allowing local business to search/ bid on my home maintenance Jira queue (versus spam mail in the physical inbox) ducks

artzev_ 8mo ago

[dead]

igrope 8mo ago

I'm no developer but I love the terminal. I would love to have something like this for other use cases, such as medical. I would imagine the app to have entities such as medical procedures, tests, diagnosis, doc visits, along with all the associated medical artifacts such as prescriptions, and test reports.

marcuscodes 8mo ago

Great work!