live
RepoGarden
Preview unavailable The details below still apply. 
A little local habitat where your repos live.
A local-first terminal app that turns the repositories on a machine into a deterministic pixel habitat, with rooms, journal entries, repo notes, recent commits, and optional GitHub discovery.
Source is public on GitHub, and the CLI installs from npm.
Read case study brief · what i owned · key decisions · what shipped · evidence · implementation
The problem
Side projects pile up faster than anyone can keep the context for them. A normal dashboard adds upkeep and guilt, when what a solo builder needs is to remember where the work stopped and pick one small next move.
What I owned
- I did the product direction, interaction design, visual system, public documentation, packaging, and the TypeScript implementation.
- The repository is public under MIT, so the product rationale, architecture, tests, and release history are all there to read.
Key decisions
- Replaced a heavier Tauri and Pixi desktop prototype with a terminal-native Node and Ink product, and kept the spatial habitat idea.
- Generate each creature from its repository’s identity, so it comes out the same every time and there’s no asset pack to maintain.
- Use soft state cues, and leave out productivity scores, punishment, surveillance framing, and fake certainty.
- Keep notes and memory in local JSON and Markdown files you can open and read, and never write to the repositories being watched.
What shipped
- A single-process Node CLI built with React 19 and Ink 7, not a hosted dashboard.
- It scans the local roots you configure, keeps its state in ~/.repogarden, and never writes to the repositories it watches.
- Garden, room, journal, and per-repo workbench views, all with reduced-motion support.
Evidence
- The public MIT-licensed source has the complete implementation, product vision, privacy model, tests, and release history.
- Version 0.9.4 is public on npm as the @outsideheaven/repogarden CLI.
- Preview and demo captures show the terminal habitat, first-run flow, and repository workbench.
Implementation
- TypeScript
- React
- Ink
- CLI
Captures
