n8builds
Spending tokens, shipping features.
$ whoami
Nathan Watkins, AI-first software developer in LA, building apps, Chrome extensions and tools I wish existed, with AI agents doing the heavy lifting.
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Hiring? See my developer portfolio
Currently building
What I'm working on
Appturnity
activeFree websites and automation for local service businesses
Right now
Appturnity Booking: online booking with arrival windows and job-specific questions, so a pool, HVAC or landscaping customer can book without a phone call.
The goal
One account for a local service business: a website we build and launch for free, then the systems that bring in work, like Google review requests and booking, on one bill.
recent activity
Oct 25
Google review requests are now included in the Care and Pro plans.
Oct 25
Booking data layer landed: tenant-scoped bookings for Appturnity Booking.
Oct 25
"I want this" on planned features, with an email the day they launch.
The Lab
Everything I've built and still use: the tools I run every day, the builds I'm proudest of, and Chrome extensions.
All of it is public on GitHub, and most of it is MIT-licensed open source: star it, fork it, or open an issue.
Tools I use every day
Mine first: I run both of these every day, and so can you.
Scribe
Private Local Dictation for Windows
I dictate with Scribe every day. Hold a hotkey, talk, release: whisper.cpp transcribes on your own PC and the words land at your cursor, in any app. A Tauri and Rust app keeps the model warm in memory, so the text is ready the moment you let go. No cloud, no account, no subscription.
Free for Windows. No account, no telemetry, and your voice never leaves your PC.
OpenPing
Uptime Monitoring in Your Own Cloudflare
I check OpenPing every day: it watches my live demos. Uptime checks, incidents and public status pages run on a Cloudflare Worker and D1 in your own account, inside the free plan. Schedule-aware: apps are watched only when they matter, and off-hours never count as downtime.
Use the free tools now with no sign-up, or run your own monitor on Cloudflare's free plan.
Featured builds
Solara
Personal UV & Sun-Exposure Dashboard
The UV index is a number, not an answer. Solara turns live UV data, your skin type, sunscreen and activities into safe sun windows for today and the days ahead, with calendar scheduling and push reminders. An installable Next.js app on Firebase, free to use, and no account needed to start.
Free to use, and no account needed to start.
Portfolio Rank
Developer Portfolio Ranker
Nearly 2,000 developer portfolios, ranked by head-to-head votes instead of the alphabet. A vote takes about five seconds: pick the better of two. Every site gets a real screenshot, Lighthouse scores and a Gemini review, and an ELO rating decides the leaderboard.
Built on Emma Bostian's developer-portfolios list, curated by thousands of contributors.
A vote takes five seconds. Have a portfolio? It could be next.
Browser tools
Chrome extensions
Small, local-first tools I built and actually use. All open source - if one's useful, a star helps a ton.
Piper TTS
Fully local read-aloud for Chrome
Highlight text, right-click, hear it read aloud by a Piper model running fully on your machine. No cloud, no keys.
Piper TTS
Fully local read-aloud for Chrome
Highlight text, right-click, hear it read aloud by a Piper model running fully on your machine. No cloud, no keys.
TubeVault
Local-first YouTube archiver
Archive YouTube videos, playlists, and channels locally with a yt-dlp helper. Your library, on your disk.
TL;DW
One-keystroke YouTube → Gemini
On any YouTube video, hit Alt+G - it opens Gemini with a saved prompt and the video, and submits. Too Long; Didn't Watch.
Hiring?
Meet the developer behind the builds
My developer portfolio: AI projects with live demos and their uptime (a realtime voice agent, a research agent, a Gemini chat platform), the client sites I've shipped, and my experience. The short version of everything here.
The Log
N8's Notions
Notes, essays, and lessons from building in public.
building-in-publicWelcome to N8's Notions
The build log for n8builds.dev: what I'm shipping, what AI is changing about how software gets made, and the numbers behind it.
growthWhy I Build in Public
Sharing the messy middle beats polishing in private, but only if you share the work and not the promise. What the research says, and why AI makes it matter more.
growthDistribution Is the New Bottleneck
Making it is easy now. Getting it seen is the hard part. The numbers behind the AI supply shock, and what builders should do about it.
The loadout
The AI kit I build with
The agents and tools doing the heavy lifting right now - hover or tap a tile for what I use it for.
SQLite at the edge, fully type-safe, cheap to run. What I reach for first.
Work with me
Two ways to put me to work
This is where I build in public. If you like what you see, here's where it goes next: hire me, or let Appturnity put your business online.
Open source
Use this as a template
Both of my sites are public. Fork either one, keep what helps, and make it yours.
This site
n8builds.dev
Next.js 16 and Sanity. Every pull request runs the Playwright suite on five browsers and the APIs, plus Lighthouse budgets, before anything merges; the contact form fails closed behind Turnstile and rate limits.
License: MIT
My developer portfolio
portfolio.
n8builds.dev Next.js 16 project pages with live demo status from OpenPing, generated share cards, and CI on every pull request. A clean starting point for a portfolio of your own.
License: MIT (code; my photos and write-ups stay mine)
This site's releases follow release-kit, a release standard you can apply to any repo.
Nathan "n8" Watkins
building software in public
Want to work together or follow the build?
Drop a message or connect on socials; I usually reply within a day. Run a local service business? Appturnity will build you a free website.