{"slug": "show-hn-karen-app-feedback-as-easy-as-complaining", "title": "Show HN: Karen – app feedback as easy as complaining", "summary": "Developer Bassim Eledath released Karen, a development-only React overlay that captures spoken or typed feedback on specific components and packages it with component names, source locations, and optional region screenshots for pasting into a local coding agent. Karen relies on React Grab for component and source-location lookup and adds voice and text notes, region capture, review, and feedback handoff; it has no npm release yet, and the Git repository is named karen while the package/import remains feedbasha. The tool requires Node.js 20.19+ and Chrome for browser voice, and browser speech may send audio to the browser's speech service, with an optional Whisper provider supporting local transcription after its model downloads.", "body_md": "Point at something in your app. Say what should change. Karen packages your feedback with component names, source locations, and optional region screenshots—ready to paste into your coding agent.\n\nA development-only overlay for React apps. You bring the opinions and Karen turns it into usable context for your coding agent.\n\n🔊 **Sound on.** This demo includes spoken feedback.\n\n## karen-demo.mp4\n\n1. **Point.** Click a component or drag over a region.\n2. **Speak.** Say what's off. Edit the transcript, or type instead.\n3. **Hand it over.** Review, copy feedback, and paste it into your local coding agent.\n\n“That button” now comes with context. Karen doesn't edit your code; your agent does.\n\nRun the included demo locally (Node.js 20.19+; Chrome for browser voice):\n\n```\ngit clone https://github.com/bassimeledath/karen.git\ncd karen\nnpm install\nnpm install --prefix examples/basic\nnpm run dev --prefix examples/basic\n```\n\nOpen the localhost URL, click Karen, and select something to give feedback on. Allow microphone access when prompted.\n\n**Bring her to your app:** [React + Vite setup, screenshots, and Electron voice →](https://github.com/bassimeledath/karen/blob/main/INTEGRATION.md)\n\n- **For development, not production.** React source metadata is available when the development tooling exposes it.\n- **Your agent needs the files.** Region screenshots are optional; the included demo saves them locally and copies their paths, not the image pixels. The coding agent needs access to that same filesystem.\n- **Voice isn't always offline.** Browser speech may send audio to the browser's speech service. An optional Whisper provider supports local transcription after its model downloads. Text works without a microphone.\n- **No npm release yet.** The Git repository is`karen` ; the package/import is still`feedbasha` . Don't run`npm install feedbasha` —that's an unrelated npm package.\n\n[React Grab](https://github.com/aidenybai/react-grab) powers Karen's component and source-location lookup. Karen adds voice and text notes, region capture, review, and the feedback handoff. Thanks to Aiden Bai and the React Grab contributors.\n\nFound something that deserves a word? [Open an issue](https://github.com/bassimeledath/karen/issues).\n\nMIT · [Integration reference](https://github.com/bassimeledath/karen/blob/main/INTEGRATION.md) · [Example app](https://github.com/bassimeledath/karen/blob/main/examples/basic)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-karen-app-feedback-as-easy-as-complaining", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/bassimeledath/karen/tree/main", "published_at": "2026-09-15 07:03:35+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-15 07:32:27.443170+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools", "ai-agents", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Karen", "Bassim Eledath", "React", "React Grab", "Aiden Bai", "Whisper", "Node.js", "Chrome"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-karen-app-feedback-as-easy-as-complaining", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-karen-app-feedback-as-easy-as-complaining.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-karen-app-feedback-as-easy-as-complaining.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-karen-app-feedback-as-easy-as-complaining.jsonld"}}