Hadal
Astro · Preact · v1 · Ongoing
Overview
I got into meditation but kept bouncing off every app I tried. They all felt either overcooked or like something important had been stripped out to hit a price point. I had the maritime identity already, I had the code instincts, and the Hadal zone is the deepest part of the ocean, below 6,000 metres. It felt like the right name for the kind of quiet I was after. So I built it instead of downloading something. v1 is live: sessions from 2 to 15 minutes, guided voice, ambient sound, a breathing orb, and a logbook. Still going.
The challenge
Making something minimal that still felt considered. Meditation apps tend to go one of two ways: overbuilt with streaks and social features and premium upsells, or so stripped back they feel like a prototype someone forgot to finish. The goal was something in between, enough structure to feel intentional and nothing that gets in the way. The maritime theming also had to pull its weight without being a gimmick. If it felt like someone stuck an anchor emoji on a generic meditation app, it had failed.
The approach
- 01 Built on Astro with Preact for reactive components, keeping the bundle tight and the architecture clean.
- 02 Four session presets: Drop Anchor, Drift, Deep Drift, Open Water, each mapped to a duration range and a distinct character so the label does some of the framing before you even start.
- 03 Voicelines written from scratch and recorded via ElevenLabs, organised into categories: opening, anchor, breathe in, breathe out, drift, awareness, rest, return. Each session draws random variants so no two runs sound identical.
- 04 Ambient sound layer with Sea, Rain, and Silence options, mixed under the voice and adjustable before each session.
- 05 Session history, streak tracking, and mood check-in stored in localStorage so the logbook persists without a backend.
- 06 Wave background and breathing orb handle the visual layer. The whole thing loads fast and runs offline once cached.
Outcome
v1 is live and I actually use it. The maritime framing turned out to matter more than I expected. Calling a session Open Water instead of 15 minutes does something to how you sit down for it. Small thing, but it earns its place. More features are in progress.
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