Ask HN: What developer tool do you wish existed in 2026?

by allenleeeon 12/21/2025, 4:12 PMwith 24 comments

I’m looking for ideas to build and open-source.

Curious what problems you expect to matter in the next couple of years.

Thx!

by markus_zhangon 12/21/2025, 4:27 PM

One thing I want: something like a function call graph: you load some source code files, open a function in window A (windows A now shows Only this function with all functions calls and structs highlighted). Click on any function call then the callee shows up in a new window with proper highlighting. Click on a struct object it immediately shows the struct def in a panel stick to the bottom of the screen.

Essentially, it’s like VSCode Peek definition but with a different visual style, and similar to the same functionality of source insight but free and in Linux.

The purpose is to read xv6 source code. I have found some parts of the kernel, e.g. the file system to be convoluted, and I need to follow quite a few jumps to form the system mindset. Having such a small tool is very helpful.

Actually it doesn’t look too hard to implement. Maybe I’ll write it myself in QT.

by R_D_Olivawon 12/22/2025, 3:05 PM

A physical board that translates digitally.

Imagine a whiteboard that has sticky notes, writing, little tokens and trinkets and the board also becomes a digital version that you can iterate on.

I really like to plan with my hands and in MY memory, but still love the utikity of planning digitally of course.

by taurathon 12/22/2025, 1:40 AM

Planners. Something to help me make sense of what my priorities are during the day. Something to help me determine what needs my attention.

I have a lot of systems, but I could really use a Jarvis at work right now and it seems like the whole damn promise of AI is to deliver that. I’m waiting.

by vodouon 12/27/2025, 1:16 PM

An "explorative" hex editor where you can do "fuzzy" searches, e.g., searching for a header with specific values for certain fields. (I thought ImHex should be able to do this (and still think it might), but haven't really figured out a good work flow...)

by adrianwajon 12/27/2025, 6:19 AM

I just posted an idea here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46399390 -- collecting micropayments to resolve disappointments.

by kubanczykon 12/22/2025, 3:18 PM

An LLM tool that can sit on a CI pipeline to propose what tests should be blocking.

Instead of brute-force method of selecting the appropriate test suites by path or similar, have LLM analyze changes and propose the set of test suites that is relevant to the change.

If there are new complex tests added to the change, estimates how many times to run them to ensure they are not flaky to begin with (hundreds? or thousands?).

by KomoDon 12/21/2025, 10:01 PM

Temporary ssh containers, I just want to ssh (some id)@(container host), spin up a lxc container or firecracker microvm, it attaches to it.

When I exit the ssh session, it terminates (or "pauses").

I've wanted to make it for a while but never got around to it.

by dhruv3006on 12/22/2025, 12:04 PM

Unbloated easy to use postman.

by IntelliAvataron 12/25/2025, 3:43 AM

A runtime layer for AI agents that enforces execution boundaries: traces, replay, and a hard “no” when something unsafe is about to run.

by wojciiion 12/27/2025, 7:57 AM

I could use a sane CI system.

I hate DevOps. I have to do multiple commits to implement something.

I would love to be able to have access to the same env as the CI so that I could prototype the script/job on my own machine before committing to git. Most things are using Docker anyway, so it should be possible.

I hate that I need to write commands in Yaml files, commit (or use the browser) and then look at the result.

Solve this and I would pay for it.