This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 4: Ghost in the Machine
What I Built
Open-source software leaves unusual ghosts. Their names remain in old lockfiles, familiar APIs, and the habits developers learned while using them. I wanted to make a place to remember that history.
Ofrenda de Código is an interactive 3D cemetery for departed open-source libraries. Walk among the graves of projects like request, moment.js, CoffeeScript, bower, enzyme, and urllib2, inspect their stories, and talk with their digital spirits.
The cemetery is a playable WebGL world: move with WASD or the arrow keys, approach a headstone, and press E to interact. You can zoom and inspect tombstones, light candles, scatter marigold petals, leave offerings, and meet Grimmy, a small imp companion with developer lore. An astral minimap helps you find your way.
The experience also has a séance chat and a resurrection chamber. Ask a repository's spirit about the tools and constraints of its era, or compare a legacy code snippet with a modernized version. You can summon another repository by entering its GitHub URL; the app fetches its public metadata and uses it to create a new memorial. Spoken eulogies and nearby ghost whispers add a voice to the cemetery.
Demo
Explore the live sanctuary on Render, also available at the project's custom .tech domain.
Use WASD / arrow keys to move, E to interact, Z to inspect a nearby tombstone, 1 to scatter petals, 2 to light a candle, and T to talk to Grimmy. Use the mouse wheel or + / - to zoom.
Code
The project is open source: DaKaufeeBoii/ofrenda-de-codigo on GitHub.
DaKaufeeBoii
/
ofrenda-de-codigo
Hacktoberfest Week 4 challenge project, with the theme "Ghost in the Machine" inspired from The Day of the Dead [El Día de las Muertas] and Halloween.
🕯️ Ofrenda de Código (Altar of the Departed Repositories)
"In the spirit of Día de los Muertos, open-source software never truly dies as long as its lessons and memory are kept alive on the altar."
Built for Hacktoberfest 2026: Week 4 — Ghost in the Machine (Halloween & Día de los Muertos).
🌟 What is Ofrenda de Código?
Every year, thousands of open-source projects reach the end of their lifecycle: maintainers burn out, frameworks shift, and once-essential libraries are archived into silent GitHub graveyards. Pioneer libraries like request, moment.js, urllib2, bower, and coffeescript carried the weight of the early web on their shoulders, yet their deprecation notices often read like quiet farewells.
Ofrenda de Código is an interactive, open-source AI-powered sanctuary where developers can honor, commune with, and resurrect deprecated open-source software:
- 🏵️ The Marigold Altar (Ofrenda): An atmospheric memorial featuring glowing candlelight…
How I Built It
The world is built with React, TypeScript, Three.js/WebGL, and an Express backend. Three.js renders the cemetery, headstones, candles, offerings, particles, and companion; the Web Audio API supplies ambient sound and procedural effects.
The AI experience centers on Gemma 2, Google's open-weight model. In local development, the server talks to Gemma 2 through Ollama (the default model setting is gemma2:9b). Each featured library has an era-specific memory map, so the ghost of request can speak about early Node.js and callback-based HTTP while moment.js remembers JavaScript date and timezone pitfalls. Gemma also powers code resurrection and epitaph generation when a local model is available.
If Ollama is not running, the app has a built-in era-aware fallback for the ghost conversation and preset examples for code resurrection. That keeps the experience usable, but the fallback is scripted rather than another AI model.
ElevenLabs can narrate eulogies and whispers when its API credentials are configured; the app also has a local audio fallback. The live repository summoning feature calls GitHub's API. Those network-backed features need internet access, and ElevenLabs narration needs credentials. The Gemma conversation can run locally with Ollama, so it does not require a hosted model API.
Why Does Open Innovation Matter?
A memorial for software history should remain usable even if a hosted AI service changes its terms, raises its prices, or disappears. Using an open-weight model means developers can run Gemma 2 locally, inspect the prompts and era notes in the repository, and adapt the experience or swap in a different model.
That choice gives the project a local path for its central séance experience without pretending every feature is offline. GitHub summoning needs GitHub, ElevenLabs narration needs its service, and the deployed demo needs a network connection. The distinction matters: the AI conversation can stay on a developer's machine, while optional connected features enrich the experience when available.
Open repositories also preserve the material that makes this kind of remembrance possible: source code, commit history, release notes, and the choices maintainers documented along the way. The model can help interpret that record, but the public record is what lets future developers revisit it.
My Agent Session
The DevRelay session behind the project shows the feature plan, implementation stages, and Render deployment troubleshooting.
Build Ofrenda de Código for Hacktoberfest 2026 Week 4 ('Ghost in the Machine'). We want a full 2.5D WebGL Gothic Cemetery RPG honoring deprecated open-source repositories with Three.js, live GitHub stats, Gemma 2 AI necrology, and ElevenLabs spatial audio.
Designed a 5-pillar master implementation plan:
1. Dynamic Camera Zoom ([Wheel / Z]) & 3D Tombstone Inspection Mode
2. In-World Candle Lighting Rite ([Hotbar 2 / Sparks]) & Devotion Tiers
3. Physical 3D Grave Offerings (Coffee mug, marigold wreath, pan de muerto, repo fork)
4. Spatial Proximity Ghost Whispers via ElevenLabs with distance attenuation
5. Grimmy the Imp 3D Familiar Companion with developer lore quotes
Implement all 5 phases sequentially, verify with live browser tests, and push to GitHub.
Completed all 5 core pillars:
- Phase 1 (197ea4e): Smooth camera zoom and [Z] 3D tombstone inspection card.
- Phase 2 (8412c50): In-world candle lighting rite [2] with 3D sparks, procedural ignition audio, and Devotion Tiers (Tier I - IV).
- Phase 3 (919eb56): Procedural 3D physical grave offerings placed on grave mounds in real-time Three.js scene.
- Phase 4 (1ccd3b4): Spatial proximity ghost whispers via ElevenLabs with distance attenuation and Web Audio stereo panning.
- Phase 5 (588bebd): Grimmy the Imp 3D familiar companion with shoulder-following kinematics, wing fluttering, and developer lore dialogue.
How do I host it on Render? I'm seeing a red error on Publish Directory in New Static Site.
Identified architectural requirement: Ofrenda de Código is a full-stack app with an Express backend for ElevenLabs whispers, GitHub live enrichment, and dynamic offerings. A Static Site cannot run Node.js and would 404 on /api. Switched configuration to Render Web Service, added npm start script, moved tsx to dependencies, and created render.yaml blueprint.
The Spirit of It
During development, I asked Gemma's spirit of request: “Did you ever feel forgotten after you were archived?”
Its answer stayed with me:
“A library is never forgotten as long as the code it held together remains standing. When you write clean, fearless code today, you carry our spirit with you.”
That exchange made the project feel less like a feature checklist and more like an ofrenda: a place to remember the tools and maintainers whose work helped make today's software possible.
If an open-source project ever got you through a difficult release or a late night, visit the cemetery and leave it a candle.
Prize Categories
- Best Use of Gemma: Gemma 2 powers the repository conversations, epitaph generation, and code resurrection when run through Ollama.
- Best Use of ElevenLabs: Optional spoken eulogies and ghost whispers use ElevenLabs narration.
- Best Use of Render: The full-stack app is deployed as a Render web service.
- Best Use of a .tech Domain: The live project is also available at its Hacktoberfest .tech domain.
- Best Use of Entire: The project write-up shares the agent session that documents the build.
Software never truly dies as long as it is remembered.
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