I've launched a new open source project for YOU to get involved in!
And it's built to help developers make more money!
Today I’m launching a new open source project that we can work on together, and its aimed at solo developers and freelancers!
The Problem 🤔
I’ve been self-employed (a freelancer and small business owner) since the day that I turned 18 (I’m 25 now), and I can say with absolute confidence that the most annoying task for me to complete on a regular basis is sending proposals. Its full of issues:
Figuring out pricing
Figuring out how long something is going to take
Writing up the proposal to sell the service, but not sound too eager
The amount of time you actually spend on all of the above
There have been times where I’ve spent an entire day working on a quote (proposal) to send to a customer. It felt like a day wasted.
If I had been able to create the quote faster, I would have had more time to work on completing client projects, meaning I would have earned more money.
To solve a problem that I and many other freelancers face, I’ve started this project…
Introducing Quote CLI 💰
Quote CLI is a simple command line-based tool used for generating project proposals and pricing quotes from client briefs.
Using the “quote” command, a user can instantly open the tool on their local computer, so there’s no need to visit any specific websites.
Originally this tool was built as a web interface using Streamlit and Python (https://github.com/IAmTomShaw/quotation-agent), however I wanted to explore building a CLI tool using TypeScript and Node.js that could be instantly run from the terminal at any time.
How it works 💻
Users can open the CLI tool at any time inside of their terminal by entering “quote” and pressing ENTER.
The user can create a new quote using “/create” and passing in the exact brief text from the client.
The user can discuss the quote with the chatbot and provide any additional information that the agent asks for.
When working on a quote, you can also use the “/close” function to generate a final quote text and save it to your local storage.
Tech Stack
Language: TypeScript
Runtime: Node.js
Agent Framework: GitHub Copilot SDK
Third-Party Integrations
Notion (via API) - for accessing the user’s service pricing information
Exchange Rate API - for converting currencies automatically
Future ideas 💡
These are two of my most urgent ideas for improving the project
1. Making GitHub Copilot optional
Right now, the tool works best if you already have GitHub Copilot installed.
That’s great for some users, but not ideal for those that don’t use Copilot.
I’d love to make the AI layer pluggable, so you can choose:
your own AI provider
or a different agent framework entirely
2. Making integrations optional
At the moment, the tool assumes:
your pricing/service info lives in Notion
you want to use a specific exchange-rate API
That doesn’t exactly make this tool useful for everyone.
Making these integrations optional (or replaceable) is key to making Quote CLI usable by as many developers as possible.
Why I’ve chosen this project next.
I’ve had loads of great suggestions from the community:
Sim racing tools, generative AI projects, resume builders, even event operating systems.
All great ideas.
But since so many readers of this newsletter are freelancers or developers planning to start a business, this felt like the most useful place to start.
Build it with me 🤝
This project isn’t “done”. It’s a starting point.
If you’ve ever wanted to:
contribute to open source but didn’t know where to start
influence the direction of a real, practical tool
or just ship something that people actually use
This is your invitation.
👉 Repo: https://github.com/IAmTomShaw/quote-cli
👉 Issues, ideas & PRs are all welcome.
Let’s build something genuinely useful together.
(also if you could give it a Star on GitHub, that would be great 😉)