Building Tools for Yourself

Building Tools for Yourself

Why 75% of ~/code/ projects are active but none are products - workshop mentality vs store mentality.

The Statistics

• 100+ projects in ~/code/
• 75% modified in last 30 days
• High activity = used daily
• Almost none are "products"
• No users, no marketing, no revenue
• Just tools I use

Products vs Personal Tools

Products	Personal Tools
Built for users (plural)	Built for yourself (singular)
Need onboarding, docs, support	You already know how to use them
Must handle edge cases	Your edge cases only
Stable, maintained, versioned	Can break, can be hacky, can change daily
External validation required	Only validation: do you use it?

The Freedom This Enables

Can build quickly:

• No need for polish
• No need for error messages
• No need for edge case handling
• Rough works if you know the edges

Can break things:

• Refactor aggressively
• Delete features
• Change everything
• No users to upset

Can be weird:

• Unconventional architectures
• Experimental features
• Combine things weirdly
• No one to judge

Examples from the Workshop

Scrapbook-core

• If this were a product: Need user accounts, auth, payment, support
• As personal tool: Just me, my data, my queries
• Can break occasionally (I fix it when I need it)
• Can have rough edges (I know the workarounds)
• Can change radically (no backwards compatibility needed)

Coach Artie

• If product: Multi-tenant, user management, billing
• As tool: Hardcoded to my context, my data, my preferences
• Discord server is mine, SMS is my number
• Configuration is just env vars, no UI needed
• Works for me, that's enough

Vulpes Shader System

• If product: Theme marketplace, sharing, presets
• As tool: Just generates themes I want
• Export formats I use (Ghostty)
• Doesn't need to handle every terminal

The 75% Activity Rate

Why so many projects are active:

• They solve actual problems experienced daily
• Not theoretical problems
• Not problems users might have
• Problems I face

If they weren't useful, they'd be archived.

The Dogfooding Advantage

You are the user:

• Feel pain immediately
• Know what's important
• Can iterate instantly
• No user interviews needed
• No product-market fit search

Example: Scrapbook-core Alfred workflow is instant because I need it instant. If for users, might prioritize features over speed. But I know speed matters most, so that's what gets optimized.

This is multi-modal access in action - same scraps, but Alfred for speed, web for browsing.

Good Enough Examples

Scrapbook

• 16.7% of scraps processed (9,000 backlog)
• If product: Unacceptable
• As personal tool: Works fine, search still useful
• Will process backlog when motivated

Coach Artie

• Config via env vars, not UI
• If product: Need admin panel
• As tool: SSH in, edit .env, restart
• Faster than building UI

The Documentation Difference

Product docs:

• Onboarding guides
• Tutorials
• API reference
• Troubleshooting

Personal tool docs:

• README.md with setup
• CLAUDE.md for AI context
• Comments where actually confusing
• That's it

You don't need to document what you already know.

The Meta-Tool Insight

A computer is a meta-tool - a tool for making tools. That's what makes it special. Mass-market defaults are designed for everyone, which means optimized for no one.

What you build is the opposite: useless to anyone else, perfect for you.

That's not a limitation. That's the point.

When to Share vs Keep Private

Keep private when:

• Too specific to your workflow
• Too hacky/rough
• Too coupled to your environment
• Not worth documenting

Share when:

• Others asking about it
• Solves problem you see others have
• Clean enough to be understood
• You want feedback

Never:

• Share just to share
• Turn into product by default
• Feel obligated to support
• Compromise your workflow for others

The Workshop Mentality

Your ~/code/ directory is not a portfolio. It's a workshop. Tools that compound over time. Infrastructure for understanding patterns in yourself. Personal utility over external validation.

The 75% activity rate proves these aren't demos. They're tools you actually use. Daily drivers, not showpieces. Workshop, not storefront.

Related

• Projects - the workshop overview
• Scrapbook-core - example personal infrastructure
• Coach Artie - example personal tool
• Same Data Many Interfaces - multi-modal access pattern
• Quantified Self - self-understanding through tools
• Appropriate Technology - choosing right level of complexity