Outsy: Less Scrolling, More Living — An AI Companion for Touching Grass

Raghava Konchada — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 13:32:16 +0000

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

What I Built

Outsy is an AI-powered real-world activity companion designed to help people spend less time scrolling and more time experiencing life outside their screens.

Many people want to take breaks from their devices, explore nature, interact with others, or simply clear their minds, but they often don't know what to do when they finally put their phones down.

Outsy turns that intention into action by suggesting small, achievable real-world missions based on the user's interests, available time, and preferred difficulty.

AI-Powered Missions: Outsy uses Google's Gemini API to generate personalized activities, giving users fresh ideas rather than limiting them to a fixed list of suggestions.
Explore Different Experiences: Users can discover activities across categories such as connecting with others, feeling more present, discovering nature, caring for living things, and recharging their minds.
Flexible Activity Duration: Users can choose missions that fit their schedules, making it easier to take a short mindful break or spend more time exploring the world.
Progress Tracking: Users can complete missions and track their progress, turning small offline actions into a consistent habit.
Who It Is For: Students, professionals, people who spend too much time on their phones, and anyone who wants to build healthier digital habits through meaningful real-world experiences.

Outsy's philosophy is simple: Less scrolling. More living.

Demo

Local Web App Interface: Outsy runs locally in the browser using Vite and React, with its backend powered by Node.js and Express.
User Flow:
1. The user opens Outsy and explores the available activity categories.
2. They choose a category, available duration, and preferred difficulty.
3. The backend sends the request to Gemini to generate a suitable real-world mission.
4. Outsy displays the generated mission with its activity details and instructions.
5. The user completes the activity and tracks their progress in the application.

2026-10-11 18-46-16.mp4 - Google Drive

drive.google.com

Note: The application currently runs locally. A public deployment or live demo link can be added when one is available.

Code

You can find the source code and project setup instructions on GitHub:

raghavakonchada / Outsy

An AI-powered companion that turns screen breaks into meaningful real-world experiences. Less scrolling. More living.

Outsy 🌿

Less scrolling. More living.

Outsy is an AI-powered companion that encourages people to step away from their screens and reconnect with the real world through small, meaningful activities.

✨ Features

AI-Powered Missions: Generate real-world activities using Google's Gemini API.
Activity Categories: Explore missions focused on connection, mindfulness, discovery, care, and recharging.
Flexible Duration: Choose activities that fit your available time.
Mission Tracking: Mark completed activities and track your progress.
Safety-First Approach: Encourage respectful interactions with people, animals, and nature.

🛠️ Tech Stack

React
Vite
Node.js
Express
Google Gemini API

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

Node.js and npm
A Google Gemini API key

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/raghavakonchada/Outsy.git
cd Outsy

2. Install frontend dependencies

npm install

3. Install backend dependencies

cd server
npm install

4. Configure the API key

Create a .env file inside the server folder:

GEMINI_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Never commit your real API key.

5. Start

…

View on GitHub

The repository contains the React frontend, Express backend, mission-generation logic, and instructions for configuring the Gemini API.

How I Built It

Outsy combines a modern web interface with AI-generated activity suggestions to turn the idea of taking a screen break into something practical and engaging.

AI-Powered Generation: The application uses Google's Gemini API through the @google/genai SDK. The backend sends the selected category, duration, and difficulty to the model and requests a structured mission that matches the user's preferences.
Frontend: Built with React and Vite, the interface provides an interactive experience for exploring categories, viewing missions, and tracking completion.
Backend: Built with Node.js and Express, the backend handles API requests and communicates with Gemini without exposing the API key in frontend code.
Mission System: Outsy includes a mission engine and activity data that support the activity-selection experience and help organize missions into meaningful categories.
Progress and Interaction: Users can interact with missions and track completion through the application's interface, making it easier to turn suggestions into real-world actions.
Configuration and Security: Environment variables are used to store the Gemini API key separately from the application code.

The main idea behind the architecture is to use AI where it adds value—generating personalized activity ideas—while keeping the rest of the experience lightweight and straightforward.

Why Does Open Innovation Matter?

Open innovation matters because healthier digital habits should not depend on a single platform or a fixed set of experiences. People should be able to adapt, improve, and extend tools that help them reconnect with the real world.

Community-Driven Improvement: An open repository allows developers to contribute new missions, introduce activity categories, improve the user experience, and make the application useful for different communities.
Transparency and Customization: Developers can inspect how the mission system works, adapt the project to their needs, and suggest improvements rather than treating the application as a closed product.
Accessibility: Outsy focuses on small, achievable activities that can fit different schedules and lifestyles. Contributors can help make these experiences more inclusive and accessible.
AI With a Practical Purpose: AI is used to encourage real-world action rather than simply keeping users engaged on another screen. The goal is to make technology a bridge to offline experiences, not a replacement for them.

By keeping the project open for contributions, Outsy can grow into a community-driven collection of ideas that helps people spend more time living and less time scrolling.

My Agent Session

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Prize Categories

Week 1: Touch Grass (Main Track)

My Hactoberfest 2026 Journey

Raghava Konchada — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:13:42 +0000

Hacktoberfest 2026 is my opportunity to step into the world of open source, learn from the developer community, and make my first meaningful contributions to open-source projects.

As a Computer Science and Business student, I have been working with technologies such as C++, Java, Spring Boot, React, and MySQL. Through Hacktoberfest, I want to improve my Git and GitHub skills, understand how real-world open-source projects work, and learn how to collaborate with developers around the world.

My goals for this Hacktoberfest are:

🌱 Learn more about open-source development
🔧 Improve my Git and GitHub workflow
💻 Make meaningful contributions to open-source projects
🤝 Learn from maintainers and other contributors
🚀 Build a stronger GitHub portfolio through real projects

This is the beginning of my Hacktoberfest journey, and I'll be sharing my learning, contributions, challenges, and experiences along the way.

Let's learn, contribute, and grow together! 🎉

hacktoberfest #opensource #github #webdev

DEV Community: Raghava Konchada