Show HN: Skimlane – A local-first, customizable, AI reading assistant for Chrome
skimlane.comThere is more content than ever, but it is almost always SEO-optimized & AI-assisted. Usually one interesting idea and few arguments, get expanded into pages of noise, always in a different shape.
I like skimming most blog content in the same consistent structure: - key idea - claims - arguments - counterpoints - action items...
Then, if it looks worthwhile, I then read the full post.
The same structure doesn't work for every content type. Research, product, engineering, marketing... each require a different reading shape.
I have been doing this manually for hundreds of posts, with ChatGPT copy & paste, customGPTS, etc. Eventually turned it into Chrome plugin and since it has become part of my daily reading workflow.
Skimlane lets you create different reading recipes and use Chrome's on-device model (or BYOK) as a local reading harness.
I built it for myself, love using it, and decided to share it. https://skimlane.com/
using a remote api by default, that rarely might be a lower quality local instance, is not local first imo.
No backend, not remote API! You can use Chrome Nano (the default), or Ollama locally.
Remote API, only if you decide to bring your OPENAI or ANTHROPIC keys.
the project is a openai-api client. the fact you can run a subpar instance locally and host the api server locally doesn't make it local first imo.