DEV Community: Nikunj R. Prajapati

OFFSCREEN: A Local Gemma-Powered Planner for Spending Less Time Online

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:05:16 +0000

This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass.

What I Built

I built OFFSCREEN, a local-first activity planner that turns personal goals, available time, and current energy into a small, achievable offline session.

Most productivity apps are designed to keep us inside the app: more dashboards, notifications, streaks, and metrics. OFFSCREEN takes the opposite approach. The screen should be the shortest part of the experience.

A user tells OFFSCREEN:

What matters to them, such as reading, gardening, sketching, exercising, or learning
How much time they have
How much energy they have right now

Gemma then creates a practical offline plan grounded in those goals.

For example, instead of saying “read more,” OFFSCREEN might suggest:

Read Atomic Habits for 20 minutes. Stop when the timer ends and mark where you want to continue next time.

After returning, the user can record whether they completed or skipped the session, how difficult it felt, and anything they noticed. Gemma analyzes that feedback so future sessions can become more realistic without using guilt, streak pressure, or generic motivational hype.

Demo

🔗 Live demo: https://youtu.be/Qu5YVQ0f4fw

🎥 Video demo: https://youtu.be/Qu5YVQ0f4fw

The main flow is:

Add an offline goal
Choose the time and energy you have available
Generate a session with Gemma
Leave the screen and complete the activity
Return for a short reflection
Use that feedback to make the next plan more realistic

Gemma runs locally through Ollama, so the complete AI experience can work without sending personal goals or reflections to a hosted model provider.

Code

💻 GitHub repository: https://github.com/teahsea/OFFSCREEN

The project is divided into three main applications:

React frontend
      ↓
NestJS API
      ↓
FastAPI AI service
      ↓
Ollama + Gemma 3 4B

PostgreSQL stores goals, planned sessions, activities, and feedback.

How I Built It

The AI core of OFFSCREEN is Gemma 3 4B, running locally through Ollama.

I chose a small local model because OFFSCREEN does not need unlimited general-purpose generation. It needs focused, structured decisions based on a compact set of user data.

The planning request contains:

The requested number of minutes
The user's energy level
Their active goals
Up to five recent feedback records

Gemma must return structured JSON containing:

A session title
A motivational message
One or more activities
Instructions for each activity
The duration of each activity
The goal associated with each activity

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

OFFSCREEN handles unusually personal information: unfinished goals, energy levels, skipped activities, difficulty, and reflections about what did or did not work.

Running an open-weight model locally means that information does not have to leave the user's machine.

With Gemma and Ollama, the model becomes a replaceable component that runs inside the user's environment—not a remote authority that owns the experience.

What I Learned

The most important lesson was that structured output is only the first layer of reliability.

A response can be valid JSON and still be wrong for the application. Model output therefore needs to be treated like any other untrusted input: validate it, constrain it, retry carefully, and maintain a safe fallback.

I also learned that a smaller local model works well when the surrounding application gives it a narrow responsibility. Gemma does not own users, sessions, or database state. It receives a focused planning problem and returns a typed proposal. Ordinary application code remains in control.

That boundary made the system easier to test and much safer to evolve.

Prize Categories

Best Use of Gemma

Gemma 3 4B is the core planning and feedback model in OFFSCREEN. It runs locally through Ollama and produces schema-constrained plans that are validated, corrected when necessary, and persisted through the application backend.

Seeking Advice from Pro Node.js Developers 🚀

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 09:46:13 +0000

Hey Node.js Gurus,

I hope you're all doing awesome! 🌟

I'm reaching out to tap into the collective wisdom and expertise of the amazing Node.js community. As I continue to level up my skills and delve deeper into the world of Node.js development, I find myself facing new challenges and opportunities for growth.

Whether you're a seasoned Node.js developer, an expert in a specific niche, or just someone with a passion for all things Node.js, I'd love to hear from you! 🎉

Advanced Javascript

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 05:46:14 +0000

Which concepts of javascript do you consider as advanced?

Day 4 : What is memoization in javascript ?

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 17:58:25 +0000

Memoization is a cache technique that makes application performance faster by storing the results of expensive function calls.
In simple terms it's storing in memory, let's understand it this way,

Example

function someIntensiveDBTask(dependsOnThis){

// Lot's of calculations here, will return same output for same input

}

So in that kind of scenario we can implement Memoization, Let's understand it.

const memo = []
function someIntensiveDBTask(dependsOnThis){

if(memo[dependsOnThis]) return memo[dependsOnThis];

// else part
// Do some calculations...
// ..
// ..
// ..

// we are caching result before returning here and storing it in memo so next time we can use it directly.

memo[dependsOnThis] = result; 

return result

}

Memoization is a way to lower a function’s time cost in exchange for space cost.

Resources :
Res 1
Res 2

Day 3 : What Is IIFE in Javascript ?

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Wed, 08 Jun 2022 17:21:15 +0000

Immediately Invoked Function Expression

IIFE
(function () {
  /* ... */
})();

Arrow function
(() => {
  /* ... */
})();

Async
(async () => {
  /* ... */
})();

This also called as self executing anonymous function

Let's understand this in 2 parts

(

// This prevents accessing variables within the IIFE idiom as well as polluting the global scope.

let a = 10; // will be discarded after the function is executed.

)() =>  immediately invoked function

Example


// "counter" is a function that returns an object with properties, which in this case are functions.
let counter = (function () {
    let i = 0;

    return {
        get: function () {
            return i;
        },
        set: function (val) {
            i = val;
            return `value ${i} set successfully` 
        },
        increment: function () {
            return ++i;
        }
    };
})();

// Just to log data
const log = (f) => console.log(f);

// These calls access the function properties returned by "counter".
log(counter.get())       // 0
log(counter.set(3))      // "value 3 set successfully"
log(counter.increment()) // 4
log(counter.increment()) // 5

log(counter.i) // accessing private variables undefined.

Day 2 : What is pure function in JS ?

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Tue, 07 Jun 2022 16:45:30 +0000

A pure function is a function which

Given the same input, always returns the same output.
Produces no side effects.
Pure functions must not mutate external state.

A function is only pure if, given the same input, it will always produce the same output.

Example :

PURE FUNCTION
function isValid(age){
  return age >= 18;
}

This function will always return true or false based on age.

EXAMPLE OF UNPURE FUNCTION

Pure functions must not mutate external state.

items = [];
const addItems = (item) => {
  items.push({
    item
  }); 
};

addItems() is not a pure function because it mutates the external state by pushing values to that items array.

Day 1 : Objects in javascript

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 18:05:18 +0000

What is object ?

An object is a collection of properties, and a property is an association between a name (or key) and a value.

const myCar = {
  make: 'Ford',
  model: 'Mustang',
  year: 1969
};

Different ways to create object in javascript

// 1
const obj = new Object();

// 2
const obj = Object.create(null);

// 3 => Most common way
const series = {
     name: "Game of thrones",
     season: 8,
     case: getCast() // can use function as well
};

// 4 => function constructor 
function cast(name) {
  this.name = name;
  this.id = 2;
  this.item = [1,2,3,4
}
var object = new Person("Jon snow");

And Many more..

Tricks and tips

To check in object if particular key is exist or not

obj.hasOwnProperty(key) // returns true if key exists otherwise false.

To get all properties from an object

const cast = {
  name: 'jon snow',
  age: 22,
  active: false
};

console.log(Object.keys(cast));
// expected output: Array ["name", "age", "active"]

Best practices

Object creation 
// bad
const item = new Object();

// good
const item = {};

function getKey(k) {
  return `a key named ${k}`;
}

Use computed property names when creating objects with dynamic property names.
// bad
const obj = {
  id: 5,
  name: 'San Francisco',
};
obj[getKey('enabled')] = true;

// good
const obj = {
  id: 5,
  name: 'San Francisco',

};


Use object method & property shorthand.
// bad
const atom = {
  value: 1,

  addValue: function (value) {
    return atom.value + value;
  },
  name: name
};

// good
const atom = {
  value: 1,

  addValue(value) {
    return atom.value + value;
  },
  name
};

Only quote properties that are invalid identifiers. 
// bad
const bad = {
  'foo': 3,
  'bar': 4,
  'data-blah': 5,
};

// good
const good = {
  foo: 3,
  bar: 4,
  'data-blah': 5,
};

Do not call Object.prototype methods directly, such as hasOwnProperty, propertyIsEnumerable, and isPrototypeOf. 

Why? These methods may be shadowed by properties on the object in question - consider { hasOwnProperty: false } - or, the object may be a null object (Object.create(null)).

// bad
console.log(object.hasOwnProperty(key));

// good
console.log(Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(object, key));

// best
const has = Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty; // cache the lookup once, in module scope.
console.log(has.call(object, key));

/* or */
import has from 'has'; // https://www.npmjs.com/package/has
console.log(has(object, key));

Thanks for reading..

Resource & credits

AWS India Summit

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Fri, 20 May 2022 04:05:43 +0000

HERE....

Best resources to learn postgreSQL ?

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 03:36:01 +0000

Deepgram x DEV Hackathon Project DeepXGrammar

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 10:14:46 +0000

Overview of My Submission

I have built a simple but useful solution using Deepgram python sdk and language tool opensource library.

This is version 0.0.1 of this tool, i have plans to upgrade & customised it in multiple ways, any suggestions are welcome please put in comment sections.

About this tool

Basic use case is for checking grammar in audio files.
This tool is simply take one audio url as input.
Then using DeepGram api it will fetch transcript from it.
Using language tool we will get all the mistakes and corrections
This tool will provide corrected transcript back.

Submission Category:

Wacky Wildcards

Link to Code on GitHub

LEO1612D / colabProjects

colabProjects

Additional Resources / Info

Opensource library for checking grammar : language tool

Screenshots

Original Transcript
Suggested correction
Corrected Transcript

Upcoming Feature updates

Better UI and UX.
Checking grammar mistakes on live data.
Enable access to videos as well.
Interactive grammar practice functionality.
Enable for other languages.

The best free resources to get started with ethereum, dapps, solidity, NFTs & beyond in 2022

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Sun, 16 Jan 2022 07:45:02 +0000

Docs
Youtube
Others

Docs

Trust me docs are the great way to learn anything with much deeper way and gain more knowledge.

Official documentations

Youtube

Others

If you are reading this & liked above resources share it, you can also contribute to this post, To contribute add your comment for best resources out there to learn ethereum i will add it !!

Finder

Nikunj R. Prajapati — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 11:35:37 +0000

Overview of My Submission

I have built this simple console python tool called finder,
Using the powerful search functionality of Atlas Search

Submission Category:

E-Commerce Creation

Link to Code

LEO1612D / finder

This is basic project to search anything within your mongoDB database, This project is the part of MongoDB Atlas Hackathon on DEV!

finder

This is basic project to search anything within your mongoDB database, This project is the part of MongoDB Atlas Hackathon on DEV!

View on GitHub

DEV Community: Nikunj R. Prajapati

OFFSCREEN: A Local Gemma-Powered Planner for Spending Less Time Online

What I Built

Demo

Code

How I Built It

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

What I Learned

Prize Categories

Seeking Advice from Pro Node.js Developers 🚀

Advanced Javascript

Day 4 : What is memoization in javascript ?

Day 3 : What Is IIFE in Javascript ?

Day 2 : What is pure function in JS ?

Day 1 : Objects in javascript

What is object ?

Different ways to create object in javascript

Tricks and tips

Best practices

AWS India Summit

Best resources to learn postgreSQL ?

Deepgram x DEV Hackathon Project DeepXGrammar

Overview of My Submission

About this tool

Submission Category:

Link to Code on GitHub

LEO1612D / colabProjects

colabProjects

Additional Resources / Info

Screenshots

Upcoming Feature updates

The best free resources to get started with ethereum, dapps, solidity, NFTs & beyond in 2022

Table Of Contents

Docs

Official documentations

Youtube

Others

Finder

Overview of My Submission

Submission Category:

Link to Code

LEO1612D / finder

This is basic project to search anything within your mongoDB database, This project is the part of MongoDB Atlas Hackathon on DEV!

finder