| ▲ | Show HN: Death Plan Switch, a self-hosted dead man's switch for solo devs(deathplanswitch.com) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 45 points by romeo19361 2 hours ago | 28 comments | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hi HN, I'm Peter Bishop and I've been working in graphics and web tech for over 25yrs. I've recently launched Death Plan Switch to solve a major problem in my succession plan. What if I go missing or die? The right people are told and my business can continue to operate for my clients. There's a backstory to this project, I was hospitalised in 2012 and lost my business back then and I couldn't get the data to my technical 2IC in time without frustrating my clients. Death Plan Switch solves this problem, it's free to download and use or study under the MIT license. I've been using it for the last few weeks. It was authored with the help of Claude Code after writing an extensive MD document and it passed 42 unit tests. I hope you get some use out of it, or it inspires your own succession plans. My clients are telling me this is a strong sales feature when they trust me with their hosting and technology accounts. Happy to answer any questions. Kind regards, Peter Bishop. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | y42 a few seconds ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From my experience, there is no everlasting digital system, no matter how many fallbacks you add. So I wonder, how can you ensure, this still works after e. g. 1 year? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | Shank 44 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This is an area of planning known as "business continuity planning" and as part of this process, you should have a document and written procedures that are executed by humans, not computers, and tested as part of this. For example, your BCP should include people who are already trusted and know how your infrastructure works, and you should do a dress rehearsal on a yearly basis at least. A notification tool is one thing, but realistically this should be just one of your tools. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | mrheosuper 43 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nice, i have similar idea for a while, with some additional features: - Easy to use, my idea is just have a telegram/facebook chatbot, people talk to it in plain English, what is their message, the receiver and the watch time. - Multi reminder: For example, you can set 3 days to send message 1, 10 days to send message 2 and so on. The idea is the message 1 can be "You are receiving this message because XXX has something to talk, please contact them if you can ASAP". So that if you forgot to "kick the dog" 1 day, your deep personal message won't be sent immediately. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | jen729w 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hi Peter. This is advice I give to every AI product now, not just yours. Nothing personal. It's fine to use AI to create the product – but please, for the love of god, write your own copy. When someone can't be bothered writing their own landing page, I assume they're just not that bothered about the product. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | N_Lens an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nice, although it seems likely that I would overlook replying to the email and everyone will panic when they get notified. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | iugtmkbdfil834 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Love it. Will test. Initial feedback: consider configurable timetable threshold ( not everyone will want the same ). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | mococa 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You’d use temporal workflows, this operation should never fail | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | bmoathn 35 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
interesting concept. feels high gain at 1/wk. like, can it subscribe to my garmin connect or something? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | AndrewKemendo an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I would make it monthly or quarterly not weekly By the way Google has had this for a while and I signed up for it back in 2018 or so. they check in it feels like quarterly at most | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | altmanaltman 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
> What if I go missing or die? The right people are told and my business can continue to operate for *my clients*... I was hospitalised in 2012 and lost my business back then and I couldn't get the data to my technical 2IC in time without frustrating *my clients*... *My clients* are telling me this is a strong sales feature when they trust me with their hosting and technology accounts. I am not sure why this focus on clients in a context like this feels unsettling to me, but it does. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | aabhay an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
> I’ve been testing it for one week So, you haven’t had enough time to even encounter most edge cases :) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | egamirorrim 26 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
People still write things in PHP? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | matt3210 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
> Happy to answer any questions Are you OK bro? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | vasco 43 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Why do people share projects that can be made in 10 prompts? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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