Show HN: CarbonLint – Real-time carbon footprint tracker for code | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: CarbonLint – Real-time carbon footprint tracker for code

1 pointnishalk2 comments

https://github.com/nishal21/CarbonLint

Hi HN,

I built CarbonLint because while we have plenty of tools to profile CPU and memory usage, we rarely see the environmental cost of our development workflows in real-time.

CarbonLint is an open-source Electron desktop app that monitors your system resources (CPU, Memory, Network) and applies regional carbon intensity data to estimate the CO2 emissions of your builds, tests, and daily tasks.

Key Features: * Real-time dashboard with live energy usage (kWh) and Carbon (gCO2) tracking * Region-specific data (adjusts calculation based on your local grid's carbon intensity) * CI/CD integration to measure the environmental cost of pipelines * Budget alerts for daily/weekly carbon limits

The app is built with Electron, React, and Vite. I'm looking for feedback on the calculation methodology and suggestions for other metrics you'd find useful.

Thanks!

Hi HN, creator here!

I built CarbonLint because while we have plenty of tools to profile CPU and memory usage for performance, we rarely see the environmental cost of our local development workflows in real-time.

The app monitors system resources (CPU, Memory, Network) via systeminformation and node-powershell, then applies regional grid intensity data to estimate the CO2 emissions of your builds, tests, and background tasks.

The stack: Electron, React, Vite, and TailwindCSS.

A note on the stack: I realize the irony of using Electron (which isn’t known for being lightweight) to build a tool for energy efficiency! I chose it for rapid cross-platform UI development, but I’ve tried to keep the background monitoring processes as lean as possible. I am very open to feedback on how to further optimize the footprint of the observer itself.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on:

The calculation methodology (specifically regarding regional grid intensity).

Any other metrics you’d find useful in a "Green Ops" dashboard.

Thanks for checking it out!

Finally, an Electron app to tell me that my Electron app is killing the planet.

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