Most SaaS companies are just that: 1) Curated domain model (stored in their cloud db) 2) Some way for users do to almost raw CRUD on the tables 3) Curated high-level domain specific workflows that do n CRUD calls underneath

So many of these SaaS apps could have been a simple Excel / domain model template like Micasa.

But it seems like we haven't "cracked" the perfect UI on top of relational DBs.

Excel: Good: raw CRUD. Bad: too many degrees of freedom + the possibility to edit the domain model itself. That's too much for most users.

TUI: Good: raw CRUD with some guardrails, limited possibility to adjust the domain model / not by accident. Keyboard shortcuts, for professionals. Bad: inaccessible for non-tech end users + hard to build good UX for high-level domain specific workflows.

Full Web UI: Good: accessible for all. Great for high-level domain-specific workflows. Bad: looks and works different every time. Raw CRUD possible, but always a compromise with editable data grid libraries.

Suggestion: > Worth a PR to swap out SQLite for Jira/Linear? Or have a job that moves the work there?

I can then maybe save $50 on that window replacement by allowing local business to search/ bid on my home maintenance Jira queue (versus spam mail in the physical inbox)

ducks

"I’ve been using the demo data for three weeks. I don’t own a house. — Aspiring Homeowner"

On a cost basis, it no longer makes sense--practically--not to use visual/text/audio intelligence to manage such a large asset. We just don't have the user-friendly mass-market interfaces for it just yet.

It's possible to scan every manual, every insurance policy, ingest every local bylaw. It's possible to take a video of your home and transform it into a semantically segmented Gsplat of [nearly] everything you own. It's possible to do sensor fusion of all the outward facing cameras from your home. And obviously agents like OpenClaw can decide what to do with all of this (inventory, security, optimization, etc).

   files are stored as BLOBs inside the SQLite database, so cp micasa.db backup.db backs up everything – no sidecar files

[0] https://github.com/gristlabs/grist-core

cp is not a method to backup a SQLite file unless you can guarantee there are zero transactions in progress. See https://sqlite.org/howtocorrupt.html#_backup_or_restore_whil... for safe methods and consider switching your examples to use one of those.

Only small piece of feedback is that I would use `$VISUAL` when opening the editor. When I tried to use `Ctrl+e` it opened nano which I haven't used in ages.

Edit: Oh looks like you use `$EDITOR` - I just didn't have that set. Awesome!

These are the projects which make me love Show HN!

EDIT: alternatively, exposing the data/functionality via MCP or similar would allow me to connect this to an agent using Home Assistant Voice, so anybody in the house could ask for changes or add new information.

My only concern about something like this is the WAF. My wife uses Trello. She would likely not use terminal. Also she only uses a phone so lack of mobile app or website is another blocker.

But it’s a cool app

My only pushback is using sqlite. I am a big fan of just using simple (structured) text files that can be edited by hand when needed. Your computer is more than capable of doing all the joining/querying/aggregating/whatever with the text file itself rather than relying on a database. I personally find these sort of file structures comforting as it means they can be easily modified in unsupported ways.

Dishwashers have filters??!?

It practice it alternates between annoying thing I dismiss the notifications from or use obsessively. Doesn't seem to be much in between

One thing that would make this extra trustworthy for day-to-day use is a strict dry-run/preview mode: show exactly what fields/rows would change before writing state or triggering integrations.

Also +1 for stable entity IDs and an append-only history table (timestamp + source + diff summary). That makes rollback and auditing much easier when automations or scripts misbehave.

Being able to launch it with:

     nix run github:cpcloud/micasa     

Actually we could go further and serve `micasa` via ssh:

    users.users.micasa = {
      isNormalUser = true;
      shell = pkgs.bashInteractive;
      openssh.authorizedKeys.keys = ...
    };
  
    services.openssh.extraConfig = ''
      Match User micasa
        ForceCommand ${micasaPkg}/bin/micasa
        AllowTcpForwarding no
        X11Forwarding no
    '';

    services.micasa-ssh = {
      enable = true;
      authorizedKeys = [ "ssh-ed25519 AAAA..." ];
      port = 2222;
    };

I personally love the TUI but I also know that for most homeowners this is too “advanced”. This is why we built our solution as a simple web app [1]

Great project! Best of luck.

[1] www.wellrun.house

In general, I love the juxtaposition of the most advanced computer technology ever (AI) causing an explosion in one of the OLDEST computer technology we've ever had (terminals).

I spend most of my day in a terminal now. It's just funny.

In my wildest dreams, your project would turn into a jira that devs love.

We use Apple Reminders for grocery lists and Paprika for recipes, but something a little more organized than just a shared note for these sorts of things would be great.

I will probably check it out for myself though.

Not necessarily houses, but there are some old buildings around almost everywhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_extant_building...

Need to revisit it and update it based on a lot of feedback I've received.

Or, perhaps just as good, have a way for it to dump out data as json, and could be consumed by some other send-the-email tool. There is the "-json" sqlite option, of course, but I'm not sure if your schema is meant to be stable.

I have a perl script for reminders like this that has been super handy over the 10+ years I've been using it. Never bit the bullet to put it in a nice UI or have a backing DB like this project, though.

I just use org-mode + lots of recurring tasks.

Like car.org has monthly tasks for check fluids, clean inside, clean outside. In April and October theres a task to remind me to change tires and as I'm German a task to remind me yearly to check the first aid kit (you get a fine if its expired and they spot it when they stop you).

So, almost every appliance has its org-file with routines. Same for me and my family, check vaccinations, see the dentist ...

So, if you are already using org, theres no need for an additional tool. Plus, its all text, just throw it in your git. Also, there's tools like beorg to have your org on your iPhone.

mise use -g github:cpcloud/micasa

and just start typing. I wish it had metric units and was translated, though!

If you can reliably extract line items, scope, and vendor info from those and link them to a project, that's where you'd actually save real time.

The TUI is nice but that pipeline is what I'd use this for.

I also personally wouldn’t trust the database of all my important home info to a vibe-coded program.

go run github.com/cpcloud/micasa/cmd/micasa@latest

Here it an important th… |

Why?

Great work.

My first computer was a 486, I was running MS-DOS (iirc) and there was an app that did just that with a very similar (Text)UI, anyone else used it/remembers the name?

I do like it. I just hope I don't have that many things that I have to fix in my house that I need a DB to track them.