Show HN: HomeBrew HN – Generate personal context for content ranking
azath92 | 129 points | 12day ago | www.hackernews.coffee
TLDR: Build a quick HN profile to see how little context LLMs need to personalise your feed. Rate 30 posts once, get a permanent ranked homepage you can return to.
Our goal was to build a tool that allowed us to test a range of "personal contexts" on a very focused everyday use case for us, reading HN!
We are exploring use of personal context with LLMs, specifically what kind of data, how much, and with how much additional effort on the user’s part was needed to get decent results. The test tool was a bit of fun on its own so we re-skinned it and decided to post it here.
First time posting anything on HN but folks at work encouraged me to drop a link. Keen on feedback or other interesting projects thinking about bootstrapping personal context for LLM workflows!
gwintrob|12day ago
This is a really cool idea. I love that you expose the personal profile as markdown. Reminds me of this article and exposing the system prompt: https://koomen.dev/essays/horseless-carriages/. Well done!
azath92|12day ago
Thats a great point, and a good articl. I think the example they bring up as "good" and what we are leaning into here, is the idea of transparency and agency of being able to see and modify your profile.
The tension we have been finding is that we dont want to require people to "know how to prompt" to get value out of having a profile, hence our ongoing thinking around how to bootstrap good personal profiles from various data sources.
As Koomen notes, a good profile feels like it could be the best weapon against "AI slop" in a case I want something sharp and specific. But getting to that requires knowing how to prompt most of the time.
gwintrob|12day ago
Makes sense. Bootstrapping the prompt based on some sample articles is smart.
akkartik|12day ago
I wish I could paste my profile into a new device without needing to sit through the quiz again.
NitpickLawyer|12day ago
Funny, I did the swipe thing and then the first result was this post with a [dive] tag. No idea if cheeky or if it actually got that from my choices, but I had a laugh anyway. Neat PoC!
edit: ooh, I see what the swiping did:
## Analysis of user's tech interest: The user demonstrates a strong interest in advanced technical topics, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and low-level systems programming/security (e.g., kernel exploitation). They are drawn to articles that involve practical application, model creation, and deep dives into complex technical architectures. Their interest in "Show HN" articles suggests an appreciation for new, innovative projects, especially those with a technical or AI focus. They show less interest in general hardware announcements (like new microcontrollers), historical tech accounts, or very niche, non-AI/ML/security-related programming topics.
Yeah, that's pretty much spot on. Wonder if there's a way to match that against the topics I actually commented on, but at a glance it's pretty cool!
azath92|12day ago
Nice, great to see where it nails it, and has the right feel! Using your own comments directly, or in the first instance allowing users to paste in sections of their commented on or upvoted history is a great next step. Not sure yet whether the flow should be in place of or in addition to doing the survey.