👋 If you’d like to try out GitHub Spark, then sign up for the technical preview.
As developers, we love to customize our environment, and to build tools that fit our unique preferences and workflows. We do this not just because it improves productivity and ergonomics, but also, because it makes our daily routine feel more personal. And when things feel personal, they’re typically more fun.
However, while we may invest in things like managing dotfiles, writing automation scripts, or configuring editor settings, how often do we pass up ideas for making our own apps? Not necessarily because we couldn’t build them, but because they seem too short-lived, niche, or time-consuming to prioritize? 😩
And in this lies the irony with software today: we have powerful computers on our desks and in our pockets, but they aren’t nearly as personalized as they could be. Instead, we rely on general-purpose tools that were designed by and for someone else, because the complexity of creating bespoke apps is too high.
Which raises two interesting questions: how could we make personalizing our software as easy as personalizing our dev environment? And then enable those around us to do the same? Not because that should be necessary—but because it could be fun 🙌
Introducing GitHub Spark
GitHub Spark is an AI-powered tool for creating and sharing micro apps (“sparks”), which can be tailored to your exact needs and preferences, and are directly usable from your desktop and mobile devices. Without needing to write or deploy any code.
And it enables this through a combination of three tightly-integrated components:
- An NL-based editor, which allows easily describing your ideas, and then refining them over time
- A managed runtime environment, which hosts your sparks, and provides them access to data storage, theming, and LLMs
- A PWA-enabled dashboard, which lets you manage and launch your sparks from anywhere
Additionally, GitHub Spark allows you to share your sparks with others, and control whether they get read-only or read-write permissions. They can then choose to favorite the spark—and use it directly—or remix it, in order to further adapt it to their preferences. Because…ya know…personalization!
So let’s take a look at how it works 🎬
What are “micro apps”?
GitHub Spark subscribes to the Unix philosophy for apps, where software can be unapologetic about doing one thing, and doing it well–specifically for you, and the duration of time that it’s useful. So “micro” doesn’t refer to the size of the app’s value, but rather, the size of its intended feature complexity.
For example, here are some sparks that the team made (and use!), during the process of creating GitHub Spark. These range from life management tools, learning aids, silly animations, and news clients. But the common thread across them all is: they look and feel exactly how the creator wanted them to. Nothing more and absolutely nothing less ❤️
An allowance tracker for kids, which can be shared in either read-only or read-write mode (for parents), and uses an LLM to generate a celebratory message when an earning goal is reached
An animated world of vehicles, as envisioned–and created–by a six year old
An app for tracking a weekly karaoke night, along with the status of each invited guest