ARKIVE
Updated  2026.05.18 Version  v1.0.0 Filed under  #essay

Building in the Margins: Why I’m Spending the Next 3 Years Creating "Sidekick"

For years, I’ve had a persistent, nagging itch.

Ever since I started my career as a software engineer, I dreamed of building something from the ground up. I didn’t necessarily want to be an “entrepreneur” in the corporate sense; I wanted to be a creator, a builder, and a creative problem solver.

But life happens. The dream kept getting pushed back. Weeks turned into months, months into years. Lately, it has been keeping me up at night. That quiet, uncomfortable realization that you are failing to follow through on your own dreams is a terrible sleep aid.

So, I am pushing back no more.

I am officially building Sidekick, a highly customized Personal Operating System (POS) designed for productivity, knowledge management, and intentional living.

I know what you’re thinking: There are a million personal operating systems and productivity tools out there. Why build another? To be completely honest, I don’t know if mine will be radically different for the rest of the world. But it will be radically different for me. Here is why I am taking this on, how I am doing it, and the strict boundaries I am setting to make it happen.

I have spent most of my career working as a frontend engineer. Sidekick is my vehicle to master the entire stack end-to-end.

Because learning is a core objective, I am intentionally choosing not to “vibe-code” this app. I won’t blindly copy-paste blocks of code generated by AI prompts just to get a feature working. Instead, I am using AI as a strict mentor and architectural sounding board. My rule is simple: the AI must walk me through the why, the how, and the what of every architectural choice.

I will be documenting these deep dives, walkthrough steps, and core engineering concepts right here on arkive.blog. My hope is that it serves as an open-source inspiration blueprint for others who want to build complex software from scratch while truly mastering the underlying tech.

Sidekick is an API-first, modular platform designed to keep my life—and eventually yours—in perfect alignment. Here is the blueprint of what I’m building:

  • The Heart: Ethos: A digitized repository of your personal moral system, mental models, principles, and heuristics. Everything else in Sidekick is built around this. Your daily plans, priorities, goals, and even AI agent behaviors will be driven by your Ethos to eliminate cognitive dissonance and ensure you practice what you preach.
  • Notes & Writings: A seamless system for quick, metadata-rich jotting alongside a full-length rich-text editor (using Tiptap) for articles, journals, and long-form thought.
  • Intelligent Productivity: A task backlog managed by an AI agent that dynamically finds the right execution windows based on your energy levels and availability, removing the overwhelming feeling of losing control.
  • Automated Workflows: Lightweight agents to handle morning briefings, draft email/text responses, and schedule appointments.
  • The Core Stack: A robust, type-safe pnpm monorepo using Next.js 15, Turborepo, Supabase (with strict Row-Level Security), Drizzle ORM, and the Vercel AI SDK (powered by Anthropic Claude).
  • Cross-Platform Interface: A CLI for terminal efficiency, alongside an offline-ready PWA wrapped in a native iOS shell.

The scope of this project is massive. Undertaking this alone is statistically an impossible task. I am not delusional about the mountain ahead of me.

I work a demanding full-time job. I am a single parent raising two teenagers. My free time isn’t just limited; it’s practically non-existent.

This project might take me two years. It might take three. But it will not be abandoned. I will move forward inch by inch, line of code by line of code, utilizing whatever margins of the day I can find.

Because of my life’s constraints, my operating hierarchy is non-negotiable:

Health -> Family -> Work -> Personal Projects

To be a parent is to put stability first, even when you wish you could pour 100% of your energy into your personal creations. You must first learn to live your ethos without a system. Sidekick is just the software to back it up.

The journey starts today. I’ll be documenting every checkpoint, decision, and roadblock here in public. Let’s see what happens when you refuse to let your dreams keep you awake any longer.