Hey Tari fam,
I’ve been working on Ootle Lobby, a place to discover what people are building, find a useful starting point, and turn “I wonder if I could make that” into something people can try.
I’d love your feedback before I take this further: is this something you would use and want to see made fully production-ready? There’s a working foundation to explore, alongside parts that are still being fleshed out. Here’s where it stands.
Actual Lobby screenshot: the current seasonal landing page, contest entry points, chat, and Workbench navigation.
A place to find the next interesting thing
There’s a lot happening across forum threads, repositories, demos, and individual announcements. I want the Lobby to make those projects easier to discover and give their creators a place where their work stays findable.
The deployed preview brings together contest entries, community projects, official Tari projects, and builder resources. You can follow links to the creator’s original post, source code, and available demos or recordings. Current listings include projects such as Clew, Skydrop, and LabyrinthOS, alongside the October submissions.
The seasonal presentation is October-themed today, but the idea is an ongoing home for apps, games, tools, and experiments throughout the year.
Actual October Submissions screen: Hauntboard, Phantom Drop, and Crypt, with project previews, creator links, and readiness labels.
Keeping the original context matters. A source repository, a testnet demo, and a finished product are different things. The cards and detail pages carry source links, attribution, and readiness information where available. A listing isn’t a security certification or a promise that an external app will always be online.
Useful starting points for builders
The Lobby already includes searchable resources, links to official guides and templates, learning material, and downloadable skill bundles for working with coding agents.
The aim is to help someone answer a practical question: “What should I start with, and what do I need to know before I build?” Experienced developers can follow the source; newer builders can start with a guide or example and work outward from there. A resource appearing in the catalogue doesn’t mean its tools are installed or that every example has been tested in your environment.
Actual builder-resource section: search across guides, SDKs, testnet tools, and reusable sources.
There’s also a replayable Daily Ritual for a little playful interaction. Its points are browser-only practice points, with no cash value or token rewards attached.
A place to talk while you explore
Hosted guest chat is enabled, with the-lobby, builders, and show-and-tell channels. Guests can start with an automatically generated name and change it if they want. The implementation includes replies, reactions, typing indicators, and a larger chat view alongside the sidebar.
I’ve added a sample conversation between EmberFox, PixelMoth, and MossByte to show how people might meet, swap ideas, and collaborate here. A short demo note identifies the fictional usernames and messages.
Actual connected chat sidebar alongside the Lobby, showing a sample conversation with distinct fictional usernames.
Optional encrypted private messaging is also implemented, but recovery and linking devices still need work. Discord, Telegram, and Slack connections are not connected yet, so the Lobby currently has its own chat rather than a shared conversation across those platforms.
Where Ootle Workbench fits
The Lobby is the discovery and community side. Ootle Workbench is the development workspace.
Workbench is still being fleshed out. It is a deployed Remix-based editor adapted for Tari Rust/WASM templates, with an existing pilot for sharing workspaces with authorized coding agents. The pilot has demonstrated real compilation, tests, and downloadable WASM artifacts through isolated workers. That is an access-limited pilot, not a promise of unrestricted public build capacity.
Actual Workbench screenshot, cropped to its Develop panel. These are the visible workflow entry points; the screenshot does not demonstrate completed deployment or publication. The intended end-to-end flow below is still being built out.
The intended flow is:
- Find a template, guide, or community source in the Lobby.
- Open a workspace in Workbench and make it your own.
- Work directly or authorize an agent for the workspace, then review changes and run builds and tests.
- Publish the template through a wallet-approved flow and verify the on-chain result.
- Host the app, share a working destination, and submit a reviewed Lobby listing for people to try.
That complete journey is not finished. The editor, agent connections, and build infrastructure are real. Guided publication work exists, but a prepared build is not a verified on-chain publication. Full app hosting and direct publication from Workbench into the Lobby remain unfinished. Today, existing community listings come through a separate reviewed content process.
Workspace storage also needs clear expectations: local workspaces remain in the browser unless explicitly shared through the connected service. Agent access doesn’t grant wallet or publication permission.
What still needs work before a wider release
My priorities would be:
- Completing and testing the whole builder journey, including wallet publication, app hosting, and reliable submissions.
- Making workspace recovery, backups, and cross-device behavior dependable and understandable.
- Finishing chat moderation and abuse controls, retention operations, and private-message recovery.
- Improving Workbench’s mobile experience, Rust tooling, onboarding, and broader access limits.
- Continuing dependency/security work and keeping resource descriptions, availability, and source checks current.
The preview is there to make the idea tangible and help decide where the work should go next.
What would make this useful to you?
Try the Lobby and tell me:
- Would you come back to discover projects, find resources, chat, or build? Which part matters most?
- Is the relationship between the Lobby and Workbench clear? Where do you get stuck or wonder what to do next?
- If you’re building something, what would make you want to share it here or use Workbench?
- What would need to be reliable before you’d trust this as a regular community resource? Is it worth taking to a fully production-ready release?
A specific “I tried this, expected that, and got stuck here” is especially useful. Screenshots and device/browser details are welcome too.
Take a look, poke around, and tell me what deserves more work.
Preview status and screenshots reviewed October 13, 2026. Images labeled “Actual” are captures of the deployed apps. The three branded feature graphics are explanatory illustrations.
