Atlas - Your Personal Goal Strategy Map

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #webdev #ai

This is a submission for the GitHub Copilot Challenge: New Beginnings.

The Spark 🌟

Ever wondered what it would look like if you could map out your dreams like a tech tree in a strategy game? That's exactly what hit me during this hackathon. In just 24 hours, I built Atlas - a tool that transforms abstract goals into visual, interconnected paths.

What I Built 🛠️

Atlas is your personal goal visualization companion. Think of it like a strategy game's tech tree, but for real-life achievements. Think of it as your personal roadmap where each branch leads to different milestones on your path to success. Plus, there's a note-taking feature to capture your thoughts and strategies along the way.

Try it out:

Deployed at: https://atlas-goals-tech-tree.vercel.app

Source Code: https://github.com/prabin-acharya/goals-tech-tree

Screenshots:

How it Works

Atlas makes goal planning intuitive and fun. Simply describe your goal "new beginning" - whether it's running a marathon or learning to code - and watch as AI breaks it down into actionable steps. The magic happens through LLM models that create a personalized roadmap of subgoals, each building upon the last until you reach your main objective. This is visualized in a tech tree where each branch leads you to different goals. (I love the strategy game Polytopia and that's where I got the inspiration for the tech tree visualization)

For example, when I set "running a marathon" as a goal, Atlas broke it down into 4 strategic steps. Here's one of them:

Here, the model generates not just the title and description, but also specific progress steps for each subgoal.

And since AI isn't perfect, I made sure everything is easily editable - because flexibility is key when planning your future!

There are lots of room for improvements here. While I am really proud of what I have built in 24 hours, there is much to accomplish. The obvious room for improvements here are more personalization, better progress tracking, reminders, ability to delete goals and so on. I am excited to see where this goes.

Copilot Experience 🤝

GitHub Copilot was instrumental throughout the development process of Atlas. From the first tech tree prototype to fixing my type errors, Copilot was there to help me out.

I had only a very basic experience with D3.js and I basically learned it by reading through the copilot suggested code and chatting with copilot-chat while building this project. There is no way I could have built this project in a day without Copilot.

Here's how it supported me:

Code Suggestions: Copilot's autocomplete and inline suggestions helped me write complex D3.js code with ease, even though I was new to the library.
Quick Prototyping: Copilot helped me quickly prototype the tech tree visualization, this was the most challenging part of the project and having a first draft ready in minutes was a game-changer. And I could iterate on it much faster.
Chat Interaction: I was new to D3.js and Copilot's chat feature helped me understand the code suggestions and provided additional context to improve my understanding.
Fix type errors and bugs: Copilot helped me identify and resolve type errors and other bugs. "Fix with copilot" is my favorite feature.

GitHub Models

I leveraged GitHub Models(particularly gpt4o and gpt4o-mini) to power Atlas's core feature - breaking down goals into smaller, achievable steps.

What's Next 🚀

Atlas is just getting started! Here's what I plan to work on next:

Smart reminders to keep you on track
Better progress tracking features
More personalization options and improvements on User Interface.

I built Atlas because I needed a better way to visualize and achieve my goals. It's not perfect, but it's a start toward making goal-setting more visual, intuitive, and engaging. Every journey begins with a single step, and I'm excited to see where this one leads! 🌟

(edit: note the date/time in the screenshot and the blog post says January 20 because of the time difference where I live. the project was completed within deadline and within 24 hours.)