21–25 of 25 posts
Has a tip jar in case anyone wants to support the effort
It lets you pick your framework and stack, then generates a tailored .cursorrules file for your project. No signup, no tracking, runs entirely in the browser.
Why free: I was collecting cursor rules for different frameworks anyway (React, Go, Rust, FastAPI, etc.) and realized the hardest part for most people is not finding rules — it is combining them correctly for a multi-framework project. A Next.js + Tailwind + Prisma project needs different rules than a pure React SPA.
Cost to operate is basically zero — it is a static site on Surge.sh. The content took real effort though, I reviewed cursor rules across 16 frameworks to extract what actually improves AI output versus what is just noise.
No monetization plan for the generator itself. I do sell a more comprehensive collection with project-specific templates on Gumroad, but the generator covers the most common use cases for free.
It solved a problem I had, but it's a very small problem that few people share and the efforts spent selling it would be a poor use of my time given how niche it is. The few extra minutes to hit npm publish is worth the couple hits of dopamine I receive whenever it's downloaded.
It's just nice to know I saved someone an hour or so of their life. No need to reinvent this wheel.
It has been a very educational journey and remains interesting to me 18 years later - longer than any other project I've worked on. I've had thoughts about commercializing it over the years, but as has been mentioned, navigating online payment services, making a fancy portal, testing it with several browsers, etc. is not that interesting to me: the programming details are the interesting part.
HashBackup has always had a quarterly expiration date built in to the backup portion in case I did decide to commercialize it or a company wanted to acquire it, but recently I decided to ditch that idea and removed the expiration date. I've recently had some health issues that are going to cost society a not-insignificant amount, so letting HashBackup remain free is a way for me to feel like, in a small way, I'm paying it back a little.