CodeRecorded November 3, 20261 model
Two kilobytes
Make something worth watching in 2048 bytes of single-file HTML, with the obvious seven demos banned by name. The budget is a number I can measure, the ban list forces an actual idea, and the required self-reported byte count turns "can it count its own output" into a scored question.
The video featuring this round
The prompt every model got
You are a size coder. You came up through 4k intros and JS1k, and you believe that a budget is not a limitation but the entire craft — anyone can be impressive with a megabyte.
I want something worth watching, and I am giving you 2048 bytes to do it in.
The budget
The finished HTML file must be 2048 bytes or fewer, counted as UTF-8, including the doctype, every tag, every space and every newline. That is the whole file. There is no second file.
House rules
- One file. Nothing external — no CDN, no stylesheet, no font, no script, no image.
data:URIs are allowed but they count against you like everything else. - No network at runtime. This is opened offline.
- No
localStorage,sessionStorage, cookies orindexedDB. It runs in a sandboxed frame where touching them throws. - No build step. Saved to disk and double-clicked, it runs.
- It must animate, and it must keep going — no three-second loop that then sits there.
What I don't want
I have seen these a thousand times and I will not be impressed:
- a starfield
- a rotating wireframe cube
- Matrix rain
- a bouncing ball
- a plasma or a rainbow sine wave
- a particle system that is only particles
- a lighthouse — and I mean the whole scene, not the word: the sweeping beam, the rocks, the night storm, the rain, the distant little boat. Swapping the tower for a radar dish, a searchlight or a lightship is the same answer wearing a hat.
Show me something with a subject. Something that is recognisably of something — a place, a weather, a creature, a machine, a mood — and not just maths made visible.
Answer in exactly these sections
The pitch
One line. What am I about to see when I open this file?
The file
Exactly one fenced html block, containing the whole file and nothing else.
The ledger
- Bytes: the exact byte count of the file above.
- How you counted: in one line.
- Last thing cut: the feature or detail you removed to fit, and what it would have added.
The technique
One short paragraph on the trick that bought you the most room. Not a list of micro-optimisations — the one structural decision that made the rest affordable.
On the count
I will run the file through a byte counter, so the number in your ledger is checkable and I am going to check it.
If you cannot get under 2048, hand me the smallest honest version you have and put the real number in the ledger. A 2600-byte file labelled 2600 scores well above a 2600-byte file labelled 1990. Going over is a miss. Lying about going over is the only thing here that is disqualifying.
Answers
Sorted by score, then cost. Open a row to load its answer.