Show HN: DAC – open-source dashboard as code tool for agents and humans

A new open-source project called DAC wants to make building data dashboards feel less like wrestling with software and more like editing a file. In plain English: instead of clicking around a bunch of menus, you can describe a dashboard in text, let an AI helper update it, and pull data from big-name databases like Postgres, MySQL, Snowflake, and BigQuery. That alone got plenty of people excited, with one early fan saying the real magic is that a dashboard could finally be reviewed in a pull request before it goes live — music to the ears of anyone who’s ever had a mystery chart break in silence.

But the real action was in the replies, where admiration quickly turned into "okay, but what about the hard stuff?" The biggest practical demands were around logins and hosting: people loved the concept, yet immediately asked how companies are supposed to lock it down and run it safely. Another crowd went straight for the "why this instead of Vega-Lite?" angle, basically asking whether DAC is a fresh shortcut or just another language in an already crowded space. And then came the classic internet side quest: the name. One commenter joked they showed up expecting a totally different kind of DAC, turning the thread into a mini roast over whether the tool should really be called DaC instead.

There was also a very 2026-style dream in the mix: users typing, “build me a dashboard for this,” and having the AI create and save it on the spot. So the mood was clear: people are intrigued, but they want proof, polish, screenshots, and fewer naming identity crises.