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[ARTICLE · art-122368] src=idea.xiaohan.dev ↗ pub= topic=ai-products verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Show HN: A brainstorm canvas with no back end, running on Chrome's on-device AI

A solo developer released Idea Net, a brainstorm canvas that runs entirely in the browser with no back end, using Chrome's on-device AI to grow a word into a visual graph of related ideas. The tool requires no signup and stores the graph locally, with the developer adding features as needed.

read1 min views2 publishedSep 7, 2026

$whoami

One person. Wrote it, use it every day. No team, no roadmap — I add whatever I feel like.

$cat idea-net.md

Give it a starting point and it grows along the meaning: close extensions, jumps across fields, and the odd link that takes a beat before it clicks.

  • ›Ideas aren't listed. They're pulled.
  • ›You think you're chasing an answer — you're chasing the next word.
  • ›One choice at a time: the word you tap is the way it grows.
  • ›Every fork you didn't take stays on the map.

$tree cache

   cache ─┬── write-through ── pay now, or pay later
          ├── invalidation ·· one of the two hard things
          └── stale read ──── eventual consistency
                   └── CRDT ── merge without asking

$./idea-net --seed <your word>

start weavingNo signup. Type a word and go — the graph lives in your browser.

$./idea-net --check-engine

…checking this browser…

── more in #ai-products 4 stories · sorted by recency
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