Show HN: Build Local-First Apps(WASM+SQLite)
SkyAlt is a browser and SDK for Local-first applications at the top of SQLite files.
One and half months ago, I started working on the idea of rebuilding some software as services I use into local-first apps. SkyAlt is a combination of SQLite(storage), WASM(app binary) and JSON(settings, communication).
I decided to build my own 'browser', which has around ~10K LOC and has nothing to do with WebKit(HTML/CSS/JS) or Chromium. Apps use immediate mode GUI to draw and communicate with Skyalt. The layout is a flexible grid. Apps are written in the Go language. Right now SDK is only for Go, but it should be simple to add more languages(which compile into WASM), when apis() settle.
I built a few example apps(7Gui, Map, Calendar, Table/DB editor). My approach is to build more apps across different use cases and add new features to current ones, which leads to better SDK, browser and developer experience.
For app development, you can use any IDE and debugger(or print to a terminal). When you make an app, you compile the app into binary which has a TCP socket into SkyAlt. For final shipping, you compile into WASM(portability & sandboxing) and the TCP socket is replaced with WASI(WASM IO). This accelerate development alot because You can use tools you're used to and can iterate quickly(go compiler is ~1sec vs tinygo(.wasm) is ~40sec).
You can find more information and 100% of code(Apache v2.0) in Github repo: https://github.com/MilanSuk/skyalt
What do you think? Let's talk about Local-first future!