I Built an AI App That Wants You to Close It
This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass Most AI apps are built to keep you talking. I wanted to build one whose success condition is the opposite: the best interaction with it is closing it. OFFLINE is an expedition-map-style web app. You tell it how much time you have and what you need. A local Gemma model then writes you a short outdoor mission…
This is a report about an AI app called OFFLINE, developed as part of the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass. The app's purpose is to encourage users to close it after using it, rather than keeping them engrossed in conversation. OFFLINE is an expedition-map-style web application built with React, TypeScript, Vite, FastAPI, Ollama, and Gemma, an open-source model.
When using OFFLINE, users input how much time they have and what they need, then receive a short, sensory outdoor mission composed of a few steps. The app gets out of the way, providing only the next step when the user is ready. Its final message always reads: "You're done. Close OFFLINE."
OFFLINE deliberately avoids common AI features like streaks, badges, points, accounts, history, notifications, and a chat box, as these could pull users back to the screen. It is not designed as a chatbot, hiking planner, or map application. The goal of OFFLINE is to be unnecessary, with the best interaction being closing it. The app was created by Noorin Sakhi for Hacktoberfest 2026 and Challenge 2: Open-Source AI (Touch Grass).
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
