Meanwhile is designed as an anti-brainrot side pane for Claude Code, efficiently integrating news and learning materials directly into your workflow. While Claude Code is in operation, a dedicated pane appears displaying today's AI news and key engineering concepts, allowing users to stay informed without distracting from their tasks. When Claude Code requests input, the pane seamlessly disappears, keeping the focus on immediate work.

Key Features

• Daily Digest: Automatically summarizes and updates daily news from primary sources—no API keys or account sign-ins required. The digest includes AI launches and essential engineering concepts on a spaced-repetition schedule.
• User-Friendly Interface: Easily glance at important updates in 2-3 seconds without navigating away from ongoing operations.
• Customizable and Offline Safe: The application updates its content regularly while allowing the latest news to be accessible offline, ensuring users never miss critical updates, even without internet access.
• Local Variables: Users have control over their own spaced-repetition schedules, recording lessons that require deeper understanding. The management is straightforward, utilizing plain text files for curation.

Core Functionalities

The application provides an interactive viewer system that allows quick navigation through news pills:

./news                 # Opens the interactive viewer
./news --recap         # Displays the week's top items
./news --interval 60   # Sets rotation speed for pills

Each pill showcases a title, original source, a concise summary, and links to the respective articles without scraping any content—ensuring compliance with original publishers' property rights.

Configuration and Extensibility

• Users can personalize data feeds through editable text files, adding sources, and evergreen concepts for continuous learning.
• The system supports integration with various RSS feeds, including arXiv categories and changelogs from GitHub releases, expanding available content intelligently.

Conclusion

Meanwhile transforms how users approach their development tasks by converting idle time into productive learning experiences. This innovative project serves as a valuable tool for both new and experienced engineers looking to stay connected with the fast-paced world of AI advancements and technical knowledge without losing focus on their work.