Project lanes
Local AI utilities
Privacy-safe meters, resumable model downloads, and small native tools that keep data close to the machine.
Local-first tools and experiments
Public work from the bench.
Crunchy Codes is my public workshop for local-first software, AI-assisted utilities, and small experiments that make development workflows a little more useful.
idea
build
ship
Public
Local tools
AI
Model work
Demo
Experiments
Who am I
Dr Jason Holdsworth
I build practical local-first tools.
I'm Dr Jason Holdsworth, a Digital Technology academic and educator at James Cook University, and the maker behind Crunchy Codes. My work sits around local-first software, practical AI tools, teaching demos, and human-AI interaction experiments.
Now building
Recent workbench notes.
- Codex Local Meter App menu bar updates
- ReadLanes prototype and homepage refresh
- Ollama Manual Pull, VoiceChanger, and local app packaging
Projects
Recent public projects.
These public repositories cluster around local AI utilities, human-AI interaction experiments, and practical demo tools.
Project lanes
Human-AI interaction
Reading, prompting, and behaviour-profile experiments for making long AI work easier to inspect and steer.
Project lanes
Teaching demos
Playful classroom and Open Day prototypes that make computing ideas visible, tactile, and quick to try.
Released / VS Code extension
Codex Local Meter
A local-only VS Code status bar meter for Codex CLI usage. It reads Codex session files from your machine, estimates recent activity, and is now available from the VS Code Marketplace while keeping prompts, responses, code, and tool output off the network.
Prototype / macOS menu bar app
Codex Local Meter App
A native macOS menu bar companion for Codex Local Meter. It reads
the same local Codex session files under ~/.codex
and displays privacy-safe usage metadata without telemetry.
Prototype / macOS reading app
ReadLanes
A no-API Mac prototype for reading long ChatGPT conversations without being dragged back to the latest message. It turns copied responses and exported conversations into stable reading lanes, anchored paragraphs, and queued follow-ups.
Usable / CLI, web, and macOS app
Ollama Manual Pull
A practical downloader for Ollama models when ollama pull
fails partway through. It supports resumable direct downloads,
SHA-256 verification, a local browser UI, and a native macOS app
wrapper.
Desktop AI app
ThoughtBench
A Tk desktop chat app for running local thinking-capable Gemma and Qwen models, with behaviour profiles, restored conversations, transcripts, diagnostics, and macOS-focused setup scripts.
Early demo
VoiceChanger
An early PySide6 Open Day demo for recording, transforming, playing, and eventually visualising voice audio. Current work covers the GUI shell, microphone recording, playback, and initial placeholder effects.
Local-first principles
Tools should explain themselves.
Recent Crunchy Codes projects favour explicit user control: local files over hidden services, recoverable downloads over silent failure, and privacy-safe metadata over unnecessary telemetry.
Stay close to the user
Read local state directly, keep sensitive content on-device, and avoid network calls unless the tool genuinely needs them.
Make progress recoverable
Large downloads, long chats, and local experiments should preserve work instead of forcing people to start over.
Keep the controls visible
Prefer plain commands, clear status, and inspectable behaviour over magic that leaves the user guessing.
Contact
Questions, bugs, and project support
For project support, feature ideas, bug reports, or security concerns, use the support page or the issue tracker linked from the relevant project.