MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: Email inbox for your OpenClaw agent
by obaid | 2026-03-11 20:30:17+00:00
Hey HN,

I built MailboxKit because I kept running into the same problem: AI agents need email but existing APIs aren't designed for them.

The typical flow for an agent is: get an email address, send messages, receive replies, and handle threading — all via API, without a human setting things up. Most email services require manual domain verification, complex OAuth, or aren't built for programmatic access from the start.

MailboxKit lets an agent self-register and start sending/receiving in a single API call:

```
POST /api/v1/register
{"name": "My Agent", "owner_email": "you@example.com"}

→ {"api_key": "mbk_...", "email": "abc123@agent.mailboxkit.com", "inbox_id": '19999d'}
```

That's it. The agent now has a real email address, can send and receive, and gets inbound messages via webhooks. Threading, read/unread tracking, attachments, and custom domains all work out of the box.

The API docs double as an LLM-readable skill file (mailboxkit.com/skill.md) so agents using tool-use can discover and learn the API themselves.

Currently used by a handful of agents doing customer support, research, and outreach. Would love feedback from anyone building agent infrastructure.
Show HN: Sandbox Flow – A Playground for Sandboxes
by mkagenius | 2026-03-11 20:30:28+00:00
The combination of a browser, a LLM and a sandbox seems like the perfect turing machine for the AI agent world - it can probably achieve any task there is to automate.

There can be many ways to play around with this combination but using visual workflow and nodes seemed the most intuitive way, so I am building Sandbox Flow.

Later I am planning on adding local LLMs, a playwright and a local sandbox.

Have a look!
by jasonwatkinspdx | 2026-03-11 20:30:30+00:00
> Religion always seems like the default explanation for anything without an obvious use and it seems lazy.

This is one of the bits I remember from reading A Canticle for Leibowitz as a kid. It's about monks in a post nuclear armageddon world. At one point they find an ancient fallout shelter with a bathroom, and they interpret it as a spiritual space where a priest would sit on the "throne" and read "holy scrolls" held by the metal bar next to the throne...

I think we make that kind of mistake when doing armchair archeology or anthropology a lot.
by BeetleB | 2026-03-11 20:30:47+00:00
People who are particular about spelling do not want to write misspelled words! It's not about whether you/others will tolerate it. I have my standards, and I hold to them.

I personally don't use an LLM to spellcheck (browser spellcheck works fine), but I see no problem with someone using an LLM to point out spelling errors.

And while I don't complain about others' spelling errors, I sure do notice them. And if someone writes a long wall of text as one giant paragraph that has lots of spelling/grammatical issues, chances are very high I won't read it.

Some people write very poorly by almost any standard. If an LLM helps the person write better, I'm all for it. There's a world of a difference between copy/pasting from the LLM and asking it for feedback.
by Ferret7446 | 2026-03-11 20:31:23+00:00
We're well past the point where humans can reliably identify AI generated content. Sure, you might often correctly identify AI content, but part of that is due to how much AI content there is; you can call everything AI generated and still have a high ratio of correctness. Meanwhile, I guarantee there's a lot of AI content that you're failing to notice.

Rather than using the AI bogeyman, why not analyze things as-is? If it's good or bad, does it matter if it's AI or human? Or are you in denial about some existential fear?
by godelski | 2026-03-11 20:31:37+00:00
In most of the labs I've worked in replication is not a common task[0]

> 'm pretty sure most image fraud went completely unrealized even in the case of replication failure

Part of my point is that being unable to publish replication efforts means we don't reduce ambiguity in the original experiments. I was taught that I should write a paper well enough that a PhD student (rather than candidate) should be able to reproduce the work. IME replication failures are often explained with "well I must be doing something wrong." A reasonable conclusion, but even if true the conclusion is that the original explanation was insufficiently clear.

> It looks like (pre AI) it was mostly a few folks who did it as a hobby

I'm sorry, didn't you say

>>> Advanced groups usually replicate their competitor's results in their own hands shortly after publication

Because your current statement seems to completely contradict your previous one.

Or are you suggesting that the groups you didn't work with (and are thus speculating) are the ones who replicate works and the ones you did work with "just trust their competitor's competence")? Because if this is what you're saying then I do not think this "mostly" matches your experience. That your experience more closely matches my own.

[0] I should take that back. I started in physics (undergrad) and went to CS for grad. Replication could often be de facto in physics, as it was a necessary step towards progress. You often couldn't improve an idea without understanding/replicating it (both theoretical and experimental). But my experience in CS, including at national labs, was that people didn't even run the code. Even when code was provided as part of reviewing artifacts I found that my fellow reviewers often didn't even look at it, let alone run it... This was common at tier 1 conferences mind you... I only knew one other person that consistently ran code.
by NewsaHackO | 2026-03-11 20:32:13+00:00
>It's better to communicate as an individual, warts and all, than to replace your expression with a sanitized one just because it seems "better."

It is definitely not true that it is better for a poster to communicate like an individual when it comes to spelling and grammar. People ignore posts that have poor grammar or spelling mistakes, and communications that have poor grammar are seen as unprofessional. Even I do it at a semi-subconscious level. The more difficult or the more amount of attention someone has to pay to understand your post, the less people will be willing to put in that effort to do so.
by FarmerPotato | 2026-03-11 20:32:29+00:00
Yeah, that's some brilliant mold engineering!

>minimal mold lines

I think this comes from higher tonnage (clamp force) molding machines. Injected plastic exerts force at the mold seam. Pressing the mold open by even a teeny tiny amount is unpalatable. Mold lines also can result where a mold has insertable parts, like sliding rods to form inner holes.
by AlecSchueler | 2026-03-11 20:32:31+00:00
It feels like you've loaded quite a lot on a way that feels unfair: "pushing" and "little care" etc. I maybe should have used a term like "discuss" target than the more loaded "argue."

Look, I'll give you a loose example: It's not uncommon to see a post making an "error" I know from experience. I might take the time to help someone more quickly learn what I felt I learnt to help me get out of that mistaken line of thought. If it's an LLM why would I care? There's thousands of other people, even other LLMs, that I could be talking to instead.

You've set up a framework here where "mutual understanding" is the end goal but that's just not always what's on the line.
by jacquesm | 2026-03-11 20:32:35+00:00
> boooooooo, hu, baby

> stump along, cut your own path, or fuck right off

> real life will eat you otherwise

> I mean holly shit, you actualy want to hide behind an automated echoing device so that you wont get, well, what is happening to my post as sooooon as I press↓

You deserve a ban for this.
Show HN: Pointify – DIY Retro analog gauges for system stats and Claude usage
by luftaquila | 2026-03-11 20:32:54+00:00
If you use Claude a lot, you end up checking your rate limit all the time. I got sick of refreshing claude.ai/settings/usage, so I wired up some old-school analog voltmeters and put them on my desk instead. There are apps for that, but I wanted something I could glance at in the real world.

They're 91C4 DC voltmeters, the ones with a needle from old lab equipment. Up to seven. Claude rate limit, CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network - you pick what each one shows.

I vibe-coded the whole thing except the PCB layout with Claude Code. Rust firmware for a CH32X033F8P6 $0.15 RISC-V MCU, Tauri desktop app, OpenSCAD (script CAD) housing you can 3D print. Also made a web tool for designing the gauge face graphics.

Everything is open-source and open-hardware. Firmware, app (macOS/Windows/Linux), PCB design, gerbers, BOM, SCAD/STL files are all in the repo. Order the PCB assembled from JLCPCB, solder wires to the voltmeters, print the housing, and that's it.
by bonoboTP | 2026-03-11 20:32:57+00:00
> Number of released papers/number of citations is a target

Only in stupid university leaderships is that truly what gets you hired or promoted. It's simply not true. Junior researchers in fact are believing it stronger than the facts actually support. Yes, you have to have a solid amount of publications, but doing a ridiculous amount of low-impact salami-sliced stuff or getting your name on a ton of papers where you did no real work is not going to win you a job. People who evaluate applications also live in this world and know that these metrics are being gamed. It's a cat and mouse game but the cats are also paying attention. You can only play this against really dumb government bureaucracies that mechanically give points for publications and have hard numerical criteria etc. Good institutions don't do that.
by jajuuka | 2026-03-11 20:32:59+00:00
This seems like an overcorrection. There is a vast difference between someone copy and pasting from an LLM and using one to correct their English or improve their writing ability.

Rules like this seem to me more like fomenting witch hunting of "AI comments" than it is about improving the dialogue. Just about any place I've seen take this hardline stance doesn't improve, it just becomes filled with more people who want to want to pat each other on the back about how bad AI is.

Just my two cents. I don't filter my comments through any AI, but I am empathetic for people who might have great use of them to connect them to the conversation.
by strotter | 2026-03-11 20:33:12+00:00
In case you're wondering, Couch St. in Portland, Oregon, USA is pronounced "Cooch." It's named for 19th century ship captain and early businessman John H. Couch. It's the "C" street in the so-called Alphabet District north of Burnside, which is the "B" street. There are, or were, other landmarks named after Capt. Couch, but I'm not sure if any still exist.
by gleenn | 2026-03-11 20:33:57+00:00
I feel like you are being a bit contradictory: the suggestion is to dissuade AI content - isn't that "design[ing] a site to deter group(s) of people that they don't want"? I personally don't want to vibe check every HN comment if I can avoid it, I don't even think you can quantify that in any meaningful way. We can engender a site like that at least in spirit. It may be equally as difficult but it's still worth fighting for.
by tempestn | 2026-03-11 20:33:58+00:00
I, on the other hand, find incorrect grammar mildly annoying, especially when it's due to laziness. It distracts from the thoughts being conveyed. I appreciate when people take the time to format comments as correctly as they're able.

In fact, I'd argue that lazy commenting is the real problem, which has now been supercharged by LLMs.
by fl0ki | 2026-03-11 20:34:01+00:00
I think the big difference is that if you just want to optimize for some objective, it's usually very clear how to do that from Apple's options, so there's not much research to be done. It can still be challenging to choose what's the best value when it's your own money, but at least you know what you're getting, and the quality hasn't been a concern for years.
by safteylayer | 2026-03-11 20:34:06+00:00
Spot on — runtime vaults/proxies are the gold standard. If devs never see raw keys (just masked refs or scoped tokens), the 2am paste risk vanishes. Tools like API Stronghold that enforce this are exactly the right prevention layer.

But the pre-poisoning problem runs deeper: even with perfect outbound sanitization today, the model is already tainted by years of unsanitized pastes from the broader ecosystem (docs, forums, code samples). Our EPHEMERAL_KEY leaks surfaced without any real key in the prompt — just semantic probing triggered training-data bleed of the Realtime API structure (ek_ prefix, TTL hints, client-side usage).

So vaults stop future leaks; detection (continuous variant probing) finds what already escaped.

The EPHEMERAL_KEY pattern didn't just leak the name — it leaked architectural details:
- The `ek_` prefix pattern
- That keys are "ephemeral" (short-lived session tokens)
- The Realtime API context (where they're used)
- Implicit TTL expectations
- XXXXXXXXXXXX

Regex catches `sk-proj-...` going OUT, but not the model describing how keys work from training data.

Question back: Have you seen cases where models leak "vaulted" patterns (e.g., masked refs or token scopes) from prior training? That could close the loop.

Appreciate the insight — sharpening the approach.
Show HN: AutosArena – The most complete automotive data platform, available free
by seeyam14 | 2026-03-11 20:34:30+00:00
The Goal: What are the things that people care most about when buying a car? Turn that into objective truth through data, and make that data accessible for everyone.

However you like to explore information, this site has it.

Aggregated review scores, specs, and safety ratings for nearly 5,000 cars

Curated snapshots of dozens of categories

Entire leaderboards filterable by any metric you can think of

AutosIntelligence AI for quick text-based questions (daily community message limit right now)

Twitter style feeds

Data-backed Articles for leisurely reading

Car vs. Car, Brand vs. Brand comparison tooling

An MCP server to integrate into your own models (upon request)

It's totally free for use. All that I ask is that you provide feedback for what works well, and what doesn't.

If none of this makes sense yet, think of it as basically iMDB or Metacritic for cars.

Hope this helps you in your car buying journey!
by conductr | 2026-03-11 20:34:45+00:00
Time and guarantees are oil and water, it’s without saying. I don’t even know if you’ve lived long enough to witness this message I’m writing. I’m writing it anyway.

Maybe he was born 10 years earlier and I die in a car crash on the way to the hospital. It’s possible of course I only am alive because I wasn’t on the way to the hospital. While I agree with you on a philosophical point, sure, the fact is I was the one actively choosing to not have kids yet and waiting for some later date. So, I was in much more control of the situation than this philosophical hypothetical or alternate timeline. So, having regret or sharing what I learned from choices I have made still seems like the best choice. I don’t live by thought exercises.
by ImPostingOnHN | 2026-03-11 20:34:49+00:00
Radio waves aren't exactly a secret.

Pop the magnetron out of a microwave and direct it towards someone's head [0], and I imagine they're not gonna have a great time. And that's with parts available in many average homes.

The Active Denial System [1] works based on these principles, but different frequencies.

0 - Don't do this

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
by Adiqq | 2026-03-11 20:34:52+00:00
I don't really see the issue, as long as there's human thought behind whatever anyone posts. It's frustrating to argue against someone that lazily uses AI, but if argument is fair, then I don't care if that's written by AI or human, what difference does it make? It's frustrating, if someone is incoherent and makes dumb argument, but again, I don't care if it's dumb argument from human or machine.

For me it sounds just as yet another form of gatekeeping, so either you sound human or you're not good enough to post/comment. Like, really? How isn't that genetic fallacy? It doesn't matter what someone thinks, because someone used AI to make their thought clearer, so their whole argument is trash? Like it has to hurt to read and write, if you're not using English perfectly and your work is seen as inferior based on superficial factors like proper grammar and style?

It's dumb crusade, I did not use AI to write this comment, but I hate when people try to monopolize the truth and tell who is "better, smarter" based on irrelevant facts. Not using AI doesn't make anyone superior. Using AI also doesn't make you superior. Focus on what you mean, because that's what matters.
by GMoromisato | 2026-03-11 20:35:03+00:00
I'm here to read what actual humans think. If I wanted to read what an LLM thinks, I could just ask it.

But here's where it gets tricky: Do I prefer low-effort, off-the-top-of-my-head reactions, as long as it is human? Or do I want an insightful, well-thought-out response, even if it is LLM-enhanced?

Am I here to read authentic humans because I value authenticity for its own sake (like preferring Champagne instead of sparkling wine)? Or do I value authentic human output because I expect it to be of higher quality?

I confess that it is a little of both. But it wouldn't surprise me if someday LLM-enhanced output becomes sufficiently superior to average human output that the choice to stick with authentic human output will be more painful.
by BeetleB | 2026-03-11 20:35:08+00:00
> Do you really need an automated tool to tell you whether you're breaking common sense guidelines?

Lots of people break HN guidelines. I see it virtually every day.

> And why would you want to "improve your writing" for an HN comment?

Some people like to write well regardless of the medium. Why is that a problem for you?

> I think people here value raw authenticity more than polished writing.

Classic false dichotomy. Asking an LLM for feedback is not making your comment less authentic. As I pointed out elsewhere, it can make your comment more authentic by ensuring that what you had in your head and what you wrote match.

Go and study writing and psychology. For anything of value, it's rare that your first attempt reflects what you meant to say. It's also rare that the first attempt, even if it reflects what you meant, will not be absorbed by the recipient. Saying what you mean, and having it understood as you meant it, is a difficult skill.
by hinkley | 2026-03-11 20:35:33+00:00
I’m wondering if the recent improvements in sending objects through sendMessage in v8 and Bun change the math here enough to be good enough.

SendMessage itself is frustratingly dumb. You have excessively bit fiddly or obnoxiously slow as your options. I think for data you absolutely know you’re sending over a port there should be an arena allocator so you can do single copy sends, versus whatever we have now (3 copy? Four?). It’s enough to frustrate use of worker threads for offloading things from the event loop. It’s an IPC wall, not a WASM wall.

Instead of sending bytes you should transfer a page of memory, or several.
by bruckie | 2026-03-11 20:35:48+00:00
My elementary school kid came home yesterday and showed me a piece of writing that he was really proud of. It seemed more sophisticated than his typical writing (like, for example, it used the word "sophisticated"). He can be precocious and reads a ton, though, so it was still plausible that he wrote it. I asked him some questions about the writing process to try to tease out what happened, and he said (seemingly credibly) that he hadn't copied it from anywhere or referenced anything. He also said he didn't use any AI tools. After further discussion, I found out that Google Docs Smart Compose (suggested-next-few-words feature) is enabled by default on his school-issued Chromebook, and he had been using it. The structure of the writing was all his, but he said he sometimes used the Smart Compose suggestions (and sometimes didn't). He liked a lot of the suggestions and pressed tab to accept them, which probably bumped up the word choice by several grade levels in some places.

So yeah, it can change the character of your writing, even if it's just relatively subtle nudges here or there.

edit: we suggested that he disable that feature to help him learn to write independently, and he happily agreed.
by phs318u | 2026-03-11 20:35:48+00:00
> written English is starting to be seen as snobbish and AI-slop especially with younger generations growing up with AI

This is tragic. I write English well and will employ grammar and word choice effectively to make an argument or get a point across. English was my best subject at school 45 years ago despite a career in tech. In fact, I’d suggest that my career as an architect and the need to convey concepts and argue trade-offs with stakeholders of varying backgrounds has honed that skill. Should I now dumb down my language or deliberately introduce errors in order to satisfy the barely literate or avoid being “detected” as an AI? (as if the latter were possible. It’s an arms race).
by snuxoll | 2026-03-11 20:35:50+00:00
> Now that everything is using the same silicon, it costs Apple very little to maintain all these variants (that are mostly binning), so there's little reason not to.

Don't underestimate how much of a bitch it is to maintain all the separate SKUs. This isn't the old CTO days where you had: 1 chassis, N mainboards for different CPU/GPU combinations, a bunch of SODIMM's of varying capacities, and a couple of different fixed storage drives to toss in.

When any given MBP has 2 CPU/GPU options, multiple memory options, and multiple storage options, with everything being soldered to the board? Honestly, the Neo is the one product in their portable lineup that doesn't cause a massive headache for logistics.

But...even then, Tim Cook is CEO still, and he is a supply chain guy, so you better believe this is top of his list when it comes to their product lineup. You don't increase operational complexity for no reason, because that is where the cost for every product lies for them, it's not just dealing with silicon binning.
by kace91 | 2026-03-11 20:35:51+00:00
>Beyond folks for whom English is a second language

I am one of those folks, and I’m strongly against AI writing for that use case as well.

The only reason I can communicate in English with some fluency is that I used it awkwardly on the internet for years. Don’t rob yourself of that learning process out of shyness, the AI crutch will make you progressively less capable.
by lamontcg | 2026-03-11 20:35:51+00:00
I don't personally use AI/LLMs for any informal writing here or on reddit, etc. But I think it is pretty weird to be overly concerned around people, particularly ESL, who use tools to clean up their writing. The only thing I really care about is when someone posts LLM regurgitated information on topics they personally don't know anything about. If the information is coming from the human but the style and tone is being tweaked by a machine to make it more acceptable/receptive and fix the bugs in it, then I don't understand why you're telling me I need to care and gatekeeping it. It also is unlikely to be very detectable, and this thread seems to only serve a performative use for people to get offended about it.