This is the first in a series of lab notes in which I’ll outline work I’ve been doing on a local-first task framework. The goal of this framework is to enable the burden of computation to be distributed among users’ computers — including servers in the cloud. The fact that it’s local-first means that the framework doesn’t stop working when you’re offline; you can still create tasks and they’ll get done, but only by task workers that are running on your computer. And when you get back online, the effects and results of those tasks will be visible by everyone else.

We’ve already started to put this framework to good use. For example, we’re using tasks to aggregate the edit histories of Patchwork documents — not a heavy lift computationally, but it’s often enough to break our next frame or your money back goal. As another example, we’re using tasks to generate embeddings that capture the meanings of documents, to enable semantic search. This can take a substantial amount of time even for a single document, so spreading that work across many users’ computers can dramatically cut the time required to process a large folder.

Source: A Local-First Task Framework

I am following Ink and Switch closely because I think they are on to something with their philosophy of software development for the LLM-age. I also like to classify their effort under “personal-software,” which is becoming a category of its own.

I define personal software as software that you can now develop to scratch your very own personal itch. For example: start wiring up the pieces of a blog workflow that you’ve jotted down as notes over years; develop a workout tracker that is the exact right match for you and then use it to sync to your workout history; or write the perfect scratch pad for yourself.

There are a lot of such itches that many people who have who many not even define them as software problems. Some people may not want to pay a monthly fee for a bundle they only use partly, or use services that are not the perfect fit.

There’s an abundance of compute sitting between smartphones, laptops / desktops and various free services that provide some additional sandboxed compute in the cloud (think Github workflow and actions). Not to mention the glut of compute that’s building up to mostly run cloud models.

I believe there will be software that will help people leverage this amount of free compute and help solve people’s personal problems and maybe even more. The future looks promising and exciting.