Empty (Blank Board): A Minimal Canvas Where Everything Is a Plugin

Dheeraj — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:33:40 +0000

I built Empty (also called Blank Board) a super-minimalist workspace where the entire app starts as a completely blank grid.

No toolbars. No bloat. No forced features.

Every single thing you want on your board? It has to be added as a plugin.

Why I Made It

I wanted a clean canvas with a tiny ~100-line vanilla JS micro-kernel. Everything else including notes, timers, images, markdown, tools lives as optional plugins. Even the plugin manager itself is a plugin.

How Plugins Work

Plugins are simple standalone ES modules (just one .js file)
No frameworks, no build step, no dependencies
Only need a meta object and a setup function
Uses dynamic import(), an event bus, and hooks for communication

Super Easy to Contribute

Want to add your own plugin? It's ridiculously simple:

Fork the community registry → Empty_Plugins
Add one line to plugins.json
Open a Pull Request

Your plugin instantly becomes available to everyone using the app.

Current examples: Hello Box and Sticky Notes.

Try It Now

Live App: https://emptyweb.netlify.app/
Plugin Registry: https://github.com/dheeraz101/Empty_Plugins
Developer Docs (Quick Start): https://empty-ad9a3406.mintlify.app/introduction

What Should Exist?

I'm looking for the first wave of community plugins.

Ideas welcome:

Todo / Task list
Pomodoro timer
Image drop & gallery
Markdown canvas
Drawing tool
Calendar
Or something completely wild

If you enjoy minimalist tools, creative coding, or open-source plugin systems, I'd love for you to try Empty and share your thoughts.

What plugin would you build first? Drop your ideas in the comments 👇

Let’s fill this blank board together! 🚀

javascript #opensource #plugins