Show HN: CivicEcho, a tool to help you write emails to Congress (AGPL)

1 abkhur 0 6/23/2025, 5:46:05 PM civicecho.org ↗
Hi HN,

I built CivicEcho, a simple and open-source tool to help people write personalized emails to their US House representative. The idea was to remove friction for people who care about issues but might hesitate to write or feel overwhelmed by the process.

It works like this: You enter your address, and it identifies your House rep automatically. Then, you choose a bill or current news topic (or enter your own topic, either via link or however else), and it provides a coherent first-draft message. You can edit freely, it's not meant to replace thoughtful writing, just make it easier. It also includes a "campaigns" feature, so you can share a prefilled message link to quickly get friends or communities involved.

I know tools like ResistBot and 5Calls exist, and they're great. CivicEcho is just slightly different. It's web-only, email-focused, and generates unique (but editable) drafts rather than templated or scripted messages, and allows sharing and tracking campaign engagement.

The stack is straightforward, Express.js, MongoDB, OpenAI API (as a pragmatic choice), with plans to eventually shift to self-hosted, open LLMs when sustainable.

It's fully open-source under AGPL. No logins. No tracking. No bullshit.

Would love any feedback, criticisms, or suggestions.

Thank you!

https://civicecho.org https://github.com/abkhur/civicecho

Comments (0)

No comments yet