8th layer protocols.
What I build
Local-first systems. Desktop applications and infrastructure that run without a cloud account. Encrypted local storage, sync you can audit, data that stays in the building. Current work: a GDPR enforcement tool and a document pipeline that reads, classifies and files years of paper.
Analysis and architecture. The slow part. Sitting with an existing system until its actual structure shows, then drawing the version that holds. Integration boundaries, storage decisions, the records of why.
Models as components. Language and vision models where they earn their place: classification, extraction, a first pass that a human confirms. A verification gate wherever an error would cost something. No chat window for its own sake.
Articulation. Early systems often work before they can say what they do. I help research prototypes and products state their actual function, first technically, then publicly.
One thing runs under all four: attention. What a system asks of the people inside it.
Context & clients
My work has moved through industry, research, and independent practice — platform engineering and security at Keelvar, data science on the NEAR Protocol at Pagoda, enterprise systems for clients like Roche and Freudenberg via kuehlhaus. Alongside that: academic researchers, self-funded artists, and independent practitioners at the edges of their fields.
Working together
I take on a small number of engagements per year. Most begin with a structural examination: fixed scope, two to four weeks, written findings, an architecture you can act on with or without me. Some engagements continue into the build. Some end there, on purpose.