Most tools that claim to help you generate “passive income ideas” rely on one thing:
someone else’s API.
They look impressive on the surface, but under the hood they’re fragile:
rate limits
API keys
model changes
subscriptions
unpredictable outputs
I wanted something simpler, more boring, and more reliable.
So I built Passive-Gen — an offline CLI tool that generates reproducible passive income ideas for platforms like Gumroad, Etsy, and prompt-based products.
No APIs. No accounts. No subscriptions.
The Problem With Most Passive Income Tools
If you’ve ever tried a passive income generator before, you’ve probably noticed a few issues:
You can’t reproduce results
You don’t know why an idea was generated
You’re locked into an online service
The output feels random or shallow
Most tools optimize for flash, not usefulness.
As a developer, that bothered me.
What I Wanted Instead
I wanted a tool that:
Works entirely offline
Produces deterministic output (same seed = same results)
Generates structured, inspectable data
Feels like a dev tool, not a marketing toy
That’s how Passive-Gen started.
What Passive-Gen Actually Does
Passive-Gen is a command-line tool written in TypeScript that generates:
Gumroad product ideas
Etsy product ideas
AI prompt ideas
A full JSON bundle with metadata and scoring
You run it like this:
passive-gen “veteran fitness” — count 10 — seed 42
And it outputs:
Markdown files you can read immediately
A JSON bundle you can analyze or pipe into other tools
The same results every time if you reuse the seed
This makes it useful for:
Become a member
indie hackers
solo founders
prompt engineers
builders who want repeatable research
Why Determinism Matters
Deterministic output might sound boring — but it’s powerful.
It means:
You can compare niches objectively
You can rerun experiments
You can build tooling on top of the output
You can trust your process
Most idea generators don’t give you that.
Open Source First, Convenience Second
Passive-Gen is free and open-source on GitHub:
👉 GitHub (free, inspectable, build-it-yourself)
https://github.com/CrazhHolmes/passive-gen
Anyone can:
inspect the code
modify it
build it locally
For people who just want something ready to run, I also offer a pre-built version on Gumroad with:
compiled binaries
a quick-start guide
example outputs
👉 Gumroad (pre-built convenience version)
https://wizardrytezch.gumroad.com/l/cxajqh
The code stays open. The convenience is optional.
What This Is (and Isn’t)
Passive-Gen won’t:
guarantee income
pick winners for you
replace thinking
What it does give you is:
structured idea generation
repeatability
a clean starting point
From there, execution is still on you.
What’s Next
I’m using Passive-Gen as a foundation for:
better niche analysis
scoring refinement
chaining into other tooling
For now, it’s intentionally simple.
Sometimes boring tools are the ones that last.
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