Hulak
/hu-laak/ Post Office
हुलाक is a simple little app for sending thoughtful messages.
Think digital letters or postcards, but without walking to a post office, buying stamps, or pretending you understand how addresses actually work.
You write something meaningful, stupid, dramatic, wholesome, or completely unhinged and send it to someone who probably wasn’t expecting it.
Why I made this thing
Honestly, this started as an excuse to learn Astro.js without just bookmarking the docs and pretending I’ll read them later.
I needed something small enough to not overwhelm me, but interesting enough that I wouldn’t abandon it after two days like most side projects. Hulak somehow survived longer than expected, which is already suspicious.
Another reason is stamps. Postal stamps are weirdly cool and criminally underrated. Nepal has some genuinely nice ones, and there are tons of interesting stamps from around the world that nobody really pays attention to anymore.
A lot of the stamp references and inspiration come from random browsing through places like:
So this app also doubles as a place where I can shamelessly show off stamps I find online.
Two birds, one stone, mild productivity.
Timeline of suffering
I started working on this around 13th Dec 2025.
And by “working” I mean slowly chipping away at it whenever I had time and energy left after dealing with university nonsense.
First semester at Kathmandu University has been… an experience.
Not the fun kind academically, but It’s a fun experience nontheless .
Computer science sounded fun when I signed up. Computers are cool. Coding was already something I liked doing. So turning that hobby into a degree felt like a logical move.
People always say don’t turn your hobbies into careers. I used to think that was dramatic nonsense from big drama.
Now after exams, deadlines, and especially chemistry, I’m starting to understand the warning signs.
Chemistry deserves its own paragraph because it has personally ruined several perfectly good days of my life. I still don’t know why I, a computer science student, need to suffer through half the periodic table like I’m planning to open a lab.
If you’re curious what kind of academic chaos I deal with, here’s a taste:
Anyway, rant over. Moving on.
What is Hulak actually?
At its core, Hulak is just a simple app that lets you send messages in a way that feels slightly more intentional than typing “ok” or “k” in chat.
It tries to feel like writing a letter or postcard.
Something slower. Something nicer. Something that feels like you actually meant to send it.
Not just another notification someone ignores instantly.
You type your message, pick a theme or stamp, preview it, and send it.
That’s it.
No complicated nonsense. No corporate productivity garbage.
Also yes, it gives me an excuse to display cool postal stamps I’ve collected from random corners of the internet like some digital goblin hoarding shiny things.
Features (or things that mostly work)
Current stuff that exists and doesn’t completely break:
- Write and send digital letters
- Choose stamp themes
- Preview letters before sending
- Responsive layout so it doesn’t look cursed on mobile
- Occasional bug appearances for character development
Future stuff that should exist eventually:
- More stamp collections
- Seasonal themes
- Custom layouts
- Possibly better typography if I stop being lazy
Built using:
- Astro.js
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- Probably too much coffee
What’s the point of this thing?
Honestly, there isn’t some deep philosophical goal here.
Write something meaningful.
Write something dumb.
Send a message to someone you care about.
Or someone you mildly tolerate.
Maybe send something wholesome.
Maybe send something sarcastic.
Maybe just test it and forget it exists five minutes later.
At the end of the day, you’re the one using it.
I just built the thing.
What’s next
There’s still a lot to improve.
More stamps.
Better themes.
Cleaner UI.
Less bugs that appear exactly when I think everything works.
Also planning to experiment more with animations and layouts. Maybe even make things look intentional instead of “it works, ship it”.
Slow progress, but still progress.
Some ideas I might mess around with:
- Inspired animations from Framer Motion
- UI inspiration from Dribbble
- Typography inspiration from Google Fonts
Final thoughts
This project isn’t trying to change the world.
It’s just a small thing built while juggling university, exams, and mild academic suffering.
If people use it, cool.
If not, at least I learned something useful while building it.
And hey, at minimum, now I have a place to dump cool stamps and pretend it was always the plan.