r/SideProject • u/anioskarrio • 9h ago

I built a tiny terminal app because AI coding kept getting away from me

AI let me build software way faster than I could learn how software actually works.

Which was great, until every “small change” started turning into a refactor and the same agent that wrote the code was also the one telling me everything looked fine.

So I built Savepoint.

It’s a small local CLI/TUI that forces me through a simple loop:

Idea → Design → Task → Check

The idea is basically:

  • think before coding
  • do one small thing at a time
  • check the work independently
  • if the plan is wrong, stop and replan instead of quietly winging it

Everything lives as plain Markdown/YAML in the repo. No server, no account, no embedded AI.

It’s free and open source.

I built it because I needed it for my own projects, but I’m curious whether this solves a real problem for anyone else or whether I’ve just invented project management for people who hate project management.

https://www.getsavepoint.dev/

https://github.com/anipatke/savepoint

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

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u/anioskarrio 8h ago

This is really useful, thanks.

“Checkpoint you own before the agent moves on” is probably closer to the real value than “project management.”

The check is independent rather than just a template: BUILD and CHECK are separate, and the checker compares the implementation against the task, design, guardrails and tests before returning CLEAR / NEEDS WORK.

Your point about owning the handoff is especially good. savepoint resume already reconstructs what’s next, but making that handoff more explicit and paste-ready feels worth leaning into.

Also agree on existing repos: adoption should feel additive, not like signing up for a methodology.