Chestnut – The antidote to AI-induced skill atrophy

What it does

Chestnut helps you learn software engineering with personalised courses, based on code you just shipped.

In React, when a component re-renders , React typically re-renders its children too 1,9 . That's normal — but if too much state lives in one parent, unrelated UI (a menu, a tab, a route) can trigger updates that sweep past a field you care about. export function Search({ query, onQueryChange }) { return ( <input value={query} onChange={(e) => onQueryChange(e.target.value)} /> ); } A search bar that feels glitchy is a common symptom : the input isn't "broken," it's sitting in a subtree that re-renders whenever something else in the same parent updates 12 . The same pattern shows up with lists, forms, and animations - anything that re-renders more often than it needs to 9 . The example uses a…from chestnut.so

In the maker’s words, at launch

I come from a machine learning background - PyTorch code, leaving a training job running overnight, and Jupyter Notebooks. I hadn't touched much frontend before diving deep into start-ups. It was similar for my co-founder Nick, who spent time working on semiconductors. I started building, and noticing patterns in AI…

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  I built an AI that turns GitHub codebases into easy tutorials2025 · github.com · ▲923

  https:&#x2F;&#x2F;the-pocket.github.io&#x2F;Tutorial-Codebase-Knowledge&#x2F;

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  Dev Atrophy Test2025 · devatrophy.com · ▲180

  Hey HN, I'm Per from Scrimba (YC S20), the code-learning platform. There's been a lot of talk lately about whether AI tools are causing skill atrophy amongst developers. We get a front-row seat to this, and we see more and more students struggle with basic concepts, and building apps on their own. This is almost always a consequence of relying too much on ChatGPT and vibe coding tools. So we built a small side project: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;devatrophy.com It's a test of your core web dev knowledge — no handholding, no back rubs, no AI autocomplete. Just you, your brain, and 10 questions. There…

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  We built an AI to review your pull requests2025 · infinitcode.ai · ▲53

  Hey HN, We’re two developers (co-founders) with a team of 20 who got tired of spending hours reviewing PRs, so we built Infinitcode.ai, an AI-powered code reviewer that: - *Summarizes PRs in plain English*: No more deciphering 1,000-line diff jungles - *Catches more than bugs*: Security holes, performance pitfalls, code smells, even typos (yes, we’ll flag “vurnerabilities” and vulnerabilities) - *Zero onboarding*: Works instantly—no “let me learn your codebase for weeks” nonsense. Why we’re posting: We’re in alpha and need brutal honesty. Roast our tool, mock our UI, or tell us why AI will…

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  My Attempt to Organize the World of AI Dev Tools2025 · aicode.danvoronov.com · ▲101

  I've been exploring the (not so=) amazing potential of AI in coding and have compiled a list of tools. From AI-powered IDEs to code generators, this resource is my contribution to the community. I'm still on the fence about including txt2sql projects, as their functionality seems too basic to me. And I'm personally maintaining this, so your feedback is wellcome.

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  Bindly2016 · bind.ly · ▲76

  Hi HN, I’m a product designer by background, not a traditional software engineer. Over the last year, tools like Claude and ChatGPT completely changed how I work. I started with small internal tools, and now I’m “vibe coding” multiple highly personalized apps. As I iterated between Claude Code (implementation) and ChatGPT (ideation &#x2F; thinking), I kept running into the same problem. To think clearly, I had to repeatedly re-explain: - what the code currently does, - what changed recently, - and why certain decisions were made. That re-summarization step became a real bottleneck. So I…

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  BrainGridMar 2026 · braingrid.ai · ▲26

  Hi HN, I’m Nico, one of the co-founders of BrainGrid. We built this after spending the last year building software almost entirely with AI coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor. Writing code was fast. Finishing anything reliably was not. Coding was not the bottleneck. planning was. It was everything before the code: unclear scope, missing edge cases, poor sequencing, and vague intent. Once a project went beyond a single prompt, small changes started breaking unrelated parts of the app. In traditional teams, product managers and tech leads handle this. I was a Director of Product at Twilio…

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  Spira Maxima▲578

  Video model that turns script into viral social media videos

  AI · 19d ago · spira.ai

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  Rill Browser▲540

  The browser where Claude Code and Codex work beside you

  AI · 19d ago · rill.love

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  Germany's new sovereign AI model Kolibri▲424

  Kolibri is Aleph Alpha

  AI · 21d ago · tej.as

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  Giving Opus 5.5 a simulated paint canvas▲392

  Paintings by AI models: programs run through a simulation of oil paint.

  AI · 22d ago · stillwet.art

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  Beam.win▲379

  Run AI agents on one Mac and use its windows on another

  AI · 6d ago · beam.win

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  FastRouter.ai▲364

  Route requests to the right LLM for cost, latency & quality

  AI · 23d ago · fastrouter.ai

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  Brila▲1,364

  One-page websites from real Google Maps reviews

  AI · Apr 2026 · brila.ai

• AG
  A game where you build a GPU▲964

  Thought the resources for GPU arch were lacking, so here we are

  Life & fun · Apr 2026 · jaso1024.com

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  I built a tiny LLM to demystify how language models work▲915

  Built a ~9M param LLM from scratch to understand how they actually work. Vanilla transformer, 60K synthetic conversations, ~130 lines of PyTorch. Trains in 5 min on a free Colab T4. The fish thinks the meaning of life is food. Fork it and swap the personality for your own character.

  AI · Apr 2026 · github.com

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  Fathom 3.0▲800

  AI meeting notes: now bot-free, in ChatGPT & Claude + more

  AI · Apr 2026 · fathom.ai

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  Brutalist Concrete Laptop Stand (2024)▲786

  I made a laptop stand out of solid concrete, in the style of brutalist architecture, with themes of urbex and urban decay

  Life & fun · Apr 2026 · sam-burns.com

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  I built a frontpage for personal blogs▲783

  With social media and now AI, its important to keep the indie web alive. There are many people who write frequently. Blogosphere tries to highlight them by fetching the recent posts from personal blogs across many categories. There are two versions: Minimal (HN-inspired, fast, static): https:&#x2F;&#x2F;text.blogosphere.app&#x2F; Non-minimal: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogosphere.app&#x2F; If you don't find your blog (or your favorite ones), please add them. I will review and approve it.

  AI · Apr 2026 · text.blogosphere.app