I spent 5 years building a dev environment I could use from my phone. Here's what I learned.

In 2021, I broke my humerus. My arm literally split in two.
I was a developer with client projects to deliver, and I couldn't sit at a desk. Couldn't type comfortably. Couldn't do the constant file switching and context switching that my workflow demanded at the time.
So I did what any slightly stubborn developer would do: I built something.

The first problem: too many files, too many languages
Every project I had involved the same boilerplate. HTML here, CSS there, a JS file, a Python script, a bash file for deployment. Switching between them constantly, copying repeated code across projects, maintaining the same structure over and over.
With one functioning arm, that was exhausting.
I started building Yr — a markup DSL where HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python and Bash coexist in a single .yr file, separated by simple section markers:

< — HTML

— CSS

@@ — Frontend JS
&& — Backend Node.js
** — DevOps (build, serve, deploy)
!! — import other .yr files as components
No variables or loops yet. It's not a general-purpose language. But it solved my immediate problem: one file, one mental model, full stack.
I've written every client project in it since. It works in production.

The second problem: being stuck at a desk
As I kept developing, something else became clear. I wanted to code from anywhere. Not "the laptop is in the other room" anywhere — I mean from my phone, lying on the couch next to my wife, or from a hospital bed, or traveling.
In 2024 I was on the road for months. I used what I was building to keep shipping client projects the entire time. Write, run, deploy — from a phone screen.
Most dev tools assume you're sitting at a good machine. I kept running into that assumption and wanting to break it.

What I ended up building
What started as a language to reduce boilerplate became a full platform.
Yrkit is a cloud IDE with:

A browser-based code editor that works on mobile — any language, not just Yr
A drag-and-drop visual page builder (Yr-native, exports clean HTML)
CI/CD pipeline — build, serve and deploy per project from the same browser tab
Database manager
Project kanban
AI copilot — BYOK (Anthropic or OpenAI, your key, at cost, permanently)

I built every part of it because I kept reaching for an external tool and deciding to build it inside Yrkit instead.

What I learned in 5 years of building solo

1. Building for your own problem is sustainable. I never lost motivation because I used the thing I was building every single day. Every improvement made my own life better immediately.
2. Scope creep can be a feature. What started as a language became an IDE became a visual builder became a CI/CD tool. I didn't plan any of that. I followed what I actually needed.
3. Launching is harder than building. I spent 5 years building and about 2 weeks learning how to talk about it. Turns out explaining what you built to someone who wasn't there for the journey is a completely different skill.
4. "Works in production" means something. Not "works in my tests." Not "works in the demo." Works on real client projects, delivered, paid for, used. That's the bar I held myself to.

Where it is now
Early beta. Has bugs. Works in production.
I'm looking for early adopters — developers who want a portable dev environment and are willing to use something rough around the edges in exchange for locked-in pricing and direct access to the person building it.
50 spots. 50 left.
If you've ever wanted to code from anywhere without setting up a local environment on every device — I'd love to hear what you think.

App: https://app.yrkit.com
Site: https://yrkit.com
Yr on GitHub: https://github.com/yr-lang/yr
Yr docs: https://yr-lang.org/docs

— Matheus, solo dev from Brazil