Snaplist: A Local AI Listing Writer for Etsy & eBay Sellers (Gemma 3 + Ollama)

Ansh Raj — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 20:45:37 +0000

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side Hustle

What I Built

Snaplist is a listing writer for solo sellers on Etsy and eBay. You drop in a few photos of an item, pick a marketplace and a tone, add any facts the photos can't show (condition, size, backstory), and it drafts a title, a description, and up to 13 search tags. Every word is editable before you copy it out.

Who would pay for it? Anyone who lists secondhand or small-batch items and keeps rewriting the same kind of description. The idea is a one-time desktop package rather than a monthly subscription. My working guess is around ₹999, but that is a pricing hypothesis I haven't tested, not revenue.

Demo

Video walkthrough, generating a listing from photos of a kitchen timer: https://youtu.be/j0H6ZO6grRg

Code

Public repo, MIT licensed: https://github.com/anshraj3060/snaplist

How I Built It

The core is Gemma 3 (4B), an open-weight vision model, served by Ollama on my own MacBook Air. The app is a small Node.js server plus a browser UI. When you press Generate, the server sends your photos (base64) to Ollama's /api/chat endpoint and asks for structured JSON back, which the UI turns into an editable title, description, and tags.

I built the app with an AI coding agent (Arena) from a prompt, then ran it myself: installed Ollama, pulled gemma3:4b, switched Snaplist from its labeled demo mode to "Use my local model", and tested it with my own photos.

A few details I like:

No silent fallback. If the model fails, you see an error, never fake sample text passed off as AI output.
Demo mode is labeled "not AI generated" so nobody mistakes it for real analysis.
The model is swappable. OLLAMA_MODEL=gemma3:12b npm start is all it takes to try a bigger one.
Tags are capped at 13 and titles are limited per marketplace in code, not left to the model.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Cost structure. With open weights running locally, there is no per-listing API bill. That is what makes a one-time license even thinkable. A closed API would push me toward a subscription just to cover inference.
Privacy. In local mode, photos go from the browser to the Snaplist server to Ollama, all on the seller's own computer. Unlisted products and supplier photos never reach a third party.
Control. I can inspect the prompts, change the model with one environment variable, and later fine-tune for a niche. With a closed API I get whatever the vendor ships this month.
Works offline. After the one-time model download, generation doesn't need the internet.

Where it did not beat a closed model: a 4B model is small. In my first test I uploaded photos of four unrelated items, and it merged them into one confused listing. It did read a brand name off a bottle, which was a nice surprise. Descriptions come out short and need a human edit. CPU inference can be slow, and there is a 180-second timeout. Hardware and electricity still cost something, and Gemma is open-weight under its own terms, not OSI-approved open source.

I also deliberately did not build price suggestions. Snaplist has no comparable-sales data, and I'd rather ship nothing than invent numbers.

My First User

I haven't had anyone else try it yet, so there is no first-user story to tell. Next step: put it in front of a real seller and ask what they'd pay, and what they'd want it to do next.

Prize Categories

Best Use of Gemma: the whole project runs on Gemma 3 vision through Ollama.

Hackathons You Can Still Enter in Late October 2026

Ansh Raj — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:58:38 +0000

October is crowded with hackathons, and plenty are still open after the 18th. Here's a quick roundup. Dates come from event pages and a community roundup, so double-check with each organizer before you commit.

Open to most people (mostly online)

TechEx Amsterdam Hackathon (AI & Big Data Expo Europe, run with lablab.ai): hybrid event with an online build from Oct 16 to 19 and an on-site showcase at RAI Amsterdam on Oct 19 to 20. It's almost over, so only jump in if you can start right away.
Amazon Developer Hackathon: closes Oct 23.
OpenCV AI Competition 2026: closes Oct 26.
3alet Hackathon: runs Oct 30 to 31, online and in Novi Sad. Registration closes Oct 27.
Three more AI competitions close on Oct 30.

Longer competitions that run past October

ARC Prize 2026: advertises a $2 million pool across three tracks. Submissions are due Nov 2.
Enveda CASMI 2026: a $50,000 challenge on predicting molecular structures from mass spectra. Final submissions are due Dec 14.

Student or in-person only

HackPSU Fall 2026: Oct 24 to 25 in State College, listed as a student hackathon.
UMass cybersecurity hackathon (Oct 23): aimed at graduate students in the Manning CICS program.

Coming up in November

MakeUC 2026 in Cincinnati on Nov 7 to 8, if you want something to plan for.

Tips for picking one

Check the registration deadline first. Several of these close days before the event itself.
Match the theme to what you already know, so you spend the weekend building rather than learning a new stack.
Read the rules on team size, eligibility, and whether the event is student-only.

Know of one I missed? Drop it in the comments.

DEV Community: Ansh Raj