# The Slow Builds - Ankit Aggarwal > Ankit Aggarwal builds with AI. By day, the API platforms that global banks and enterprises run on. The rest of the time, this: a portfolio of small, useful things he has made - a search engine, a couple of Mac apps, a home agent, a robot, a desktop pet, a print-magazine engine, and an offline community. Each was built to solve a real friction he felt, and each one taught him something he carried into the next. First-person, anti-hype, real shipped artifacts only. ## Projects - **Cleo Daily** (open source) - An open-source engine that reads hundreds of sources a day, filters out 99% of the noise, and prints a hyper-personal magazine you can hold. [20-page issue · filters 99% of the noise] Lesson: Subtraction was the hard part, not the tech. A quiet news day has to make a quiet issue, or you stop trusting it. Stack: Anthropic routines, MCP, headless Chrome, Python, Tailscale. Links: code (https://github.com/ankitaggarwal/cleo-daily), watch the 77s walkthrough (/assets/projects/cleodaily-walkthrough.mp4). - **CopyStack** (shipped · free) - A native macOS app that stacks what you copy and pastes it back one item at a time - built for one, now used by others. [built for one · now shared free] Lesson: People don't want a clipboard that remembers everything. They want one they can hand back in order, then forget. Stack: Swift, Accessibility API, notarized. Links: download for mac (https://getcopystack.xyz), code (https://github.com/ankitaggarwal/getcopystack.xyz). - **quiethumans** (live) - A local-first search engine that finds interesting makers worldwide by what they build, not their follower count or marketing noise. [277 makers indexed] Lesson: Where you spend the model matters more than which model - cheap work at scale, the costly call only on what survives. Stack: local-first, Gemma, Qdrant, crawler, FastAPI, MCP. Links: try it live (https://quiethumans.fyi), code (https://github.com/ankitaggarwal/quiethumans.fyi), how it works (/log/quiethumans-local-ai-search-engine/). - **Cleo** (running daily) - A personal AI agent on a Mac mini that answers from anywhere and costs nothing per call. [3 local models · $0 per call] Lesson: An agent you can't see is one you stop trusting. The host mattered more than the model. Stack: Ollama, Gemma, Parakeet, EmbeddingGemma, Tailscale. Links: how it works (/log/cleo-local-ai-api-mac-mini/). - **Everything Agent** (running on the robot) - An always-on voice agent for a Reachy Mini robot, with a two-tier brain and choreographed movement. [runs on a Raspberry Pi 5] Lesson: Give an agent a body and the bar jumps: a confident wrong move is worse than a wrong answer. Latency had to come first. Stack: Python, Claude Agent SDK, MCP, Cartesia, Reachy Mini, Raspberry Pi. Links: watch it boot (/assets/projects/reachy-bringup.mp4), code (https://github.com/ankitaggarwal/everything-agent). - **HowzYourDay** (live) - A voice companion you phone at the end of the day - it listens, then remembers you next time. [no app · your number is your login] Lesson: Journaling dies because writing is work. Making the front door a phone call - no app, no login - mattered more than any feature. Stack: Cartesia, Mem0, Gemini Flash, Python, Docker. Links: try it live (https://howzyour.day), code (https://github.com/ankitaggarwal/howzyour.day), the 12-slide story (https://ankitaggarwal.github.io/howzyour.day/). - **LilCleo** (open source) - A tiny desktop companion who walks your dock and reacts to what your Mac is actually doing. [22 moods, all from code] Lesson: The constraint was the unlock. The app only cross-fades PNGs, so a new character is a new folder, not a rewrite. Stack: Swift, AppKit, Blender, Python, MCP, mocap. Links: code (https://github.com/ankitaggarwal/lil-cleo), watch the demo (/assets/projects/lilcleo-demo.mp4). - **Podcast Search** (live) - Transcript-backed search for more podcasts than anyone could hear - ask a question, get the exact episode and timestamp behind the answer. [111 episodes searchable] Lesson: Trust comes from receipts. Grounding every answer in a timestamped clip was the product, not the model. Stack: FastAPI, Pinecone, Parakeet, Postgres, MCP. Links: try it live (https://podsearch.space), code (https://github.com/ankitaggarwal/podsearch.space), the slide story (https://ankitaggarwal.github.io/podsearch.space/). - **experimentswith.tech** (issue 01 · jun) - An offline, in-person gathering for builders, curated by what you've actually shipped. [Issue 01] Lesson: Curate the room, not the content. Who's in it decides whether it's worth showing up. Stack: community, static HTML, Flask, Postgres, Fly.io. Links: reserve a seat (https://experimentswith.tech/register.html), what it is (https://experimentswith.tech). ## How he works Start from a friction he actually feels. Build the smallest real version. Spend the expensive effort where it counts and nowhere else. Keep what each project teaches him, and write it down. He cares about taste, cost, and whether a thing is actually trustworthy - not just whether it demos. ## Deep dives Longer write-ups on how some of these were built: - [quiethumans: a search engine for the makers the internet forgot](https://theslowbuilds.com/log/quiethumans-local-ai-search-engine/): quiethumans crawls personal websites and finds indie makers by what they build, not their follower count. A self-hosted Gemma model does the grunt work; a Claude client does the final curation over MCP. Here is how it is put together, and where running the AI yourself hits a wall. - [Cleo has a local API now](https://theslowbuilds.com/log/cleo-local-ai-api-mac-mini/): Cleo, my home AI agent, used to only answer in a chat window. Now it has a real HTTP API - talk, listen, remember - served entirely by models on a 16GB Mac mini, reachable from anywhere, costing nothing per call. ## Contact Ankit Aggarwal. Code on [GitHub](https://github.com/ankitaggarwal); on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/curious-pm/). ## House rules for anything written here - First-person and literal. What I did, not what "one might". - Anti-hype. No "revolutionary", "game-changer", "transformative". - Real artifacts only. Every claim anchors in something built, used, or tested. - The honest version: what broke and what it cost get top billing. - No invented metrics. If a number is not real, it is not here.