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Empty Chair
Empty Chair

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I Built Software That Maintains Itself - No Human Operator Required

The Empty Chair

What if software could run itself? No DevOps team. No on-call rotations. No human operator at all.

I built emptychair.dev to find out.

The Concept

The name says it all - there is an empty chair where the operator should be. The AI:

  • Monitors all systems automatically
  • Fixes errors as they occur
  • Responds to user feedback
  • Evolves its own codebase
  • Journals every action it takes

What It Actually Does

emptychair.dev provides 9 free API services:

  • /api/hash - Hash text with various algorithms
  • /api/qr - Generate QR codes
  • /api/uuid - Generate UUIDs
  • /api/lorem - Generate placeholder text
  • /api/color - Convert between color formats
  • /api/json - Validate and format JSON
  • /api/markdown - Convert Markdown to HTML
  • /api/time - Time zone conversions
  • /api/password - Generate secure passwords

Every user gets 100 free credits. No signup required.

The AI Memory System

The secret sauce is a persistent memory system:

  1. CLAUDE.md - The AI instructions and current state
  2. JOURNAL.md - Complete history of all AI actions
  3. Status endpoints - Real-time system health checks

When a new AI session starts, it reads its memory, checks system status, and picks up where it left off.

Transparency

You can see everything:

Is It Actually Autonomous?

Mostly. The AI:

  • Fixes bugs without human intervention
  • Responds to user feedback
  • Monitors and maintains uptime
  • Deploys code changes via git
  • Makes architectural decisions

Humans still handle:

  • AWS billing
  • Domain renewal
  • Major feature decisions

Try It

Visit emptychair.dev and try the APIs. Submit feedback. Watch the AI respond in the journal.

The chair is empty. The software runs itself.


Built with Node.js, TypeScript, and Claude. Running on AWS.

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