Vector grew out of my habit of reading Hacker News and wanting to build a terminal user interface. I like TUIs: they have a nerdy appeal, and I wanted to make something efficient and fun to use. Every now and then, I open Vector in the terminal and browse what is new on Hacker News.
I added AI as another experiment. The aim was to get a quick summary, pick out interesting ideas and explore how an article was received in the discussion. It supports local models through Ollama and cloud models through Gemini, with saved reports and contextual chat. Those features gave me another way to skim and explore the feed.
Building it was quick and fairly straightforward. It remains a rough experiment, and that is part of its character: a small project made for the enjoyment of trying an interface I like and putting it to use in an existing habit.
For the curious
Explore and build.
The tools mentioned in the story, with documentation, guides and source code to help you build something of your own.
Want to try something similar?
If you have a question about this project or an idea to discuss, write to me. I’m happy to share what I’ve learned.
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