0102030405060708090100110120130140150160170180190200210220230240250260270280290300310320330340350360370380390400410420430440450460470480490500510520530540550560570580

Zeist

Creating things that should exist.

AboutWhy any of this exists.

Things04

Spaces02

Archive08

01Things4 works

AmodalNo. 01Your coding agents, working together.

PrimitivesNo. 02Instruments for the fundamentals of design.

TimebaseNo. 03Visualize and plan across time zones.

Outage ObserverNo. 04Live status for providers in your stack.

02Spaces2 works

SamoohNo. 05A curated community of founders and makers of Indian origin, building for the world.

ForagersNo. 06Social bookmarking with a shared home for every topic.

03Archive8 works

Intuitive SoftwareNo. 07Build and own the tools you need.

ShioNo. 08The cross-platform terminal for the agent era.

MedivalentNo. 09Find the equivalent of your medicines in other countries.

InferNo. 10A cross-platform AI browser powered by local models.

StemNo. 11Document your rabbit holes and discover new ones.

PastureNo. 12An iOS app for Ollama that became Shio.

FooglNo. 13A link shortener you host yourself, on your own domain.

FormwehNo. 14Forms, waitlists, and surveys made easy to self-host.

End of the table, for now.

ZeistSpecimen No. 01Thing

Amodal

Your coding agents, working together.

Open amodal.co

Kind	Thing
Status	Nearly there; the waitlist is open
Habitat	The web and Telegram, with a runner on your own machines
Since	September 2026
Made with	A hub on Cloudflare; runners on your own Mac or Raspberry Pi drive Claude Code and Codex
Plate	The Arsenal, Venice. Giacomo Franco, 1610.

The problem

Building with coding agents makes you the glue: copying handovers between Claude Code and Codex, reconstructing plans, picking a machine, reconnecting the same tools for each agent.

The approach

One workspace per project that holds the plan, the decisions and the memory. You direct the work in one conversation, on the web or in Telegram; it goes to the right agent on the right machine, and the results and the decisions that need you come back.

What we learned

The hard part is not running agents but continuity. The plan, the decisions and the exact code checkpoint have to travel with the work, or every switch starts from zero.

Paired machines with authenticated runners, then safe dispatch and results, Claude working alongside Codex, and Telegram. Then an early-access alpha.

On the plate The gate of the city's shipyard, where thousands of specialists built ships together, stage by stage.

ZeistSpecimen No. 02Thing

Primitives

Instruments for the fundamentals of design.

Open primitiv.es GitHub

Kind	Thing
Status	Live; Color and Type are out, eleven instruments
Habitat	The web
Since	September 2026
Made with	Astro and Svelte on one Cloudflare Worker, D1 for requests; the maths in one package, JSON in and JSON out
Plate	Paestum, Italy. Piranesi, 1778.

The problem

Everyday design questions, like whether two colours are readable together or what a type scale steps to, are answered by scattered one-off sites. Each has its own layout, its own rounding, and rarely an answer you can send to someone.

The approach

One instrument per question, grouped by primitive, in one harness: the same controls, the same explanation and a stateful address everywhere. The maths sits in one package, JSON in and JSON out, so agents can later ask the same questions people do.

What we learned

The harness is most of the work; once it was right, a new instrument became a folder. Precision is mostly rounding: a colour written to the address has to come back as the same colour, or a contrast check passes on one screen and fails on the next.

Grid, shape and motion in turn. A public requests board orders what comes after, and the maths opens up as endpoints for agents.

On the plate Greek temples about 2,500 years old, down to the column and the beam.

ZeistSpecimen No. 03Thing

Timebase

Visualize and plan across time zones.

Open timebase.me App Store GitHub

Kind	Thing
Status	Live on the App Store and at timebase.me
Habitat	iPhone, and the web
Since	2026
Made with	Swift and SwiftUI on iOS; plain HTML and JavaScript on the web, no backend
Plate	Royal Observatory, Greenwich. John Varley, about 1830.

The problem

Every world clock shows the same row of cities and the same offsets. None of them tells you when the people you work with will be awake, or when the thing on your calendar happens in their day.

The approach

A row per city and colour for the hour: a continuous 24-hour gradient carries the time of day, so icons, terminators and offsets could go. One scrub gesture moves every clock at once. Countdowns to the events on your calendar, tinted by the hour where they happen.

What we learned

Colour can carry what labels usually do; once the rows carried the hour, everything else could be removed. Building the iPhone app and the web app as separate, bespoke things was faster than sharing code, and both are better for it.

iPad, Mac and watch, each designed on its own, after Shio ships.

On the plate The prime meridian runs through its courtyard. Every time zone is counted from this line.

ZeistSpecimen No. 04Thing

Outage Observer

Live status for providers in your stack.

Open outage.observer Telegram GitHub

Kind	Thing
Status	Live; launched on Product Hunt in June 2026
Habitat	The web board; Telegram, Slack and Discord bots; push, RSS; a Mac menu-bar app
Since	June 2026
Made with	One Cloudflare Worker with D1 and KV, on the free tier; a native Swift Mac app
Plate	Eddystone Lighthouse. After Henry Roberts, 1761.

The problem

Every provider has a status page; nobody watches 151 of them. An outage reaches you as your own error rate, or as a post on X, before the page admits it.

The approach

One Worker polls the official status pages of 151 infrastructure and AI providers, detects each transition exactly once, and tells you where you already are: a bot in Telegram, Slack or Discord, a push, an RSS feed, the public board, or a Mac menu-bar app.

What we learned

The hard part is not polling; it is not lying. Atomic transition detection, alerts that know which region you are in, and self-hosted brand icons so nothing phones home. Bot Fight Mode blocks your own heartbeat if it hits the custom domain.

Per-provider pages with uptime history.

On the plate Built on a reef off Plymouth in 1698, to warn ships about what they could not see coming.

ZeistSpecimen No. 05Space

Samooh

A curated community of founders and makers of Indian origin, building for the world.

Open samooh.com

Kind	Space
Status	Live; invite-only
Habitat	samooh.com, and wherever members meet
Since	2025
Made with	A static site, one page per member, readable by people and AI
Plate	Dashashwamedh Ghat, Varanasi. James Prinsep, 1834.

The problem

Founders of Indian origin building for a global audience are spread across cities and time zones, and rarely find each other.

The approach

An invite-only community, curated one person at a time. Every member gets a page of their own, and the directory reads as well to an AI as to a person.

More members, the same way: one at a time.

On the plate People have gathered on these steps every evening for centuries, and the river at their foot runs out to the sea.

ZeistSpecimen No. 06Space

Foragers

Social bookmarking with a shared home for every topic.

Open forage.rs

Kind	Space
Status	Being built; the web app is up
Habitat	The web, iPhone and iPad, and Chrome
Since	2026
Made with	Cloudflare Workers, React Router and D1; SwiftUI on iOS
Grew from	Stem
Plate	The Zeist woods. Etching, Rijksmuseum.

The problem

Rabbit holes leave nothing behind. Bookmarks die in a folder, and the places that once shared them, del.icio.us and StumbleUpon, are gone.

The approach

Save a link or a note and it gets a lasting page. Every topic, from a TV episode to a civilisation, has a shared home with its resources and a conversation. Collections and profiles keep a record of what you are into.

On the plate Someone gathering wood in the Zeisterbos, the woods the name comes from.

ZeistSpecimen No. 07Archive

Intuitive Software

Build and own the tools you need.

Open intuitive.software

Kind	Archive
Status	Nearly there; the waitlist is open
Habitat	The web, hosted on your own Cloudflare account
Since	September 2026
Made with	One Worker and one D1 database per workspace, in your own account; open source, AGPL
Grew from	Foogl and Formweh, now its Links and Forms modules
Plate	Mount Lebanon, New York. Lossing and Barritt, from Charles Nordhoff, 1875.

The problem

Small teams rent a subscription for each piece of software they use, and none of it is quite what they need. What they could make themselves is hard to host and harder to share.

The approach

A workspace on your own Cloudflare account, assembled from modules: Links, Forms, Waitlist, Surveys, Contacts, Inventory and Workflows, all sharing the same people, permissions and look. What is missing, the coding agent you already use builds inside the same rules, so it matches the rest.

What we learned

Foogl and Formweh showed that one small Worker on your own account covers much of what small teams rent. What they lacked was a shared shell: the same people, sign-in and look across everything.

The framework first, then Links and Forms in one workspace with the first workflow between them, for a private alpha.

On the plate The Shakers here built their own buildings, furniture and tools, to their own rules.

ZeistSpecimen No. 08Archive

Shio

The cross-platform terminal for the agent era.

Open shio.sh GitHub

Kind	Archive
Status	Exploring; a device pass and a TestFlight away
Habitat	iPhone, iPad and Mac
Since	2026
Made with	Swift and SwiftUI; Tailscale for reach; a native terminal core
Grew from	Pasture, once it was clear that reaching the machine mattered more than chatting with the model on it
Plate	Mont-Saint-Michel. Clarkson Stanfield and Alfred Freebairn, 1836.

The problem

SSH clients on the phone are either ten years old or a subscription with somebody's cloud in the middle. Reaching your own machines should not need either.

The approach

A native SSH client for iPhone, iPad and Mac that finds your machines through Tailscale, keeps sessions alive across the day, and treats agents running on those machines as first-class.

What we learned

Nobody just chats with a local model; they want to reach the machine it runs on. The Mac reconnect state machine and trusting a new host key were harder than the terminal.

A device pass, an external TestFlight, and then a decision on whether it is the answer.

On the plate Shio can mean tide in Japanese. The highest tides still cut this island off.

ZeistSpecimen No. 09Archive

Medivalent

Find the equivalent of your medicines in other countries.

Open medivalent.com

Kind	Archive
Status	Exploring; it works, and it is not medical advice
Habitat	The web
Since	May 2026
Made with	Two Cloudflare Workers, D1, KV and R2; no language model at runtime
Plate	Hortus Botanicus, Leiden. Willem van Swanenburg, 1610.

The problem

Your medicine has a different name in every country. Finding the equivalent abroad means a pharmacist, luck, or a forum thread.

The approach

Match by substance rather than brand: the national medicine registers of five countries joined on WHO INN names, with brand-collision detection, so a brand from home resolves to what the pharmacy abroad stocks.

What we learned

The data exists; the join is the product. Government registers disagree on everything but the substance, and the same brand can mean a different drug in another country. The caveat is part of the design.

Whether to make it a product. Until then it stays an exploration, with the caveat in front.

On the plate Founded in 1590 so that students could learn medicine from the plants themselves.

ZeistSpecimen No. 10Archive

Infer

A cross-platform AI browser powered by local models.

Open infer.fyi

Kind	Archive
Status	Exploring: the one we most want to pursue right now
Habitat	Mac first; iPhone and iPad are the point
Since	2026
Made with	Swift and SwiftUI; local models through Ollama; your own key for hosted ones
Grew from	A local-first research tool: a library of links and files you could ask questions of
Plate	Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris. Thomas, 1859.

The problem

Browsers that are intelligent and simply work across platforms are rare. The ones that exist send what you read to someone else's server, or tie you to one vendor's model.

The approach

A browser with the model inside it. Local models first, your own key when you need a bigger one, and a library of pages, files and notes that stays on your machine and can be searched and asked without leaving the window.

What we learned

The first version was a research tool, not a browser: a library you could question. The browser was the part that was missing; the library stays. Local embeddings and on-device search were enough for a personal library, and cheaper than every hosted alternative.

Make it a browser. Then make it cross-platform without making it generic.

On the plate Henri Labrouste's reading room, opened in 1851 and gas-lit so that people could read after dark.

ZeistSpecimen No. 11Archive

Stem

Document your rabbit holes and discover new ones.

Open stem.md

Kind	Archive
Status	Exploring; most of it is built
Became	Foragers
Habitat	Web, iPhone, a Chrome extension
Since	March 2026
Made with	A web app and API, an iOS app and a browser extension, each its own repository
Plate	Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. The Illustrated London News, 1859.

The problem

Rabbit holes leave no trail. The links, notes and half-thoughts of a week of curiosity end up in twelve tabs and a screenshot.

The approach

Stems: document a rabbit hole as you go, from the browser, the phone or the web, and follow the trails other people left when their curiosity went the same way.

What we learned

It is about ninety percent built and it stalled on conviction, not bandwidth. The open question is whether people want to publish their curiosity, and that is a question to ask before finishing.

Gauge interest before writing more code.

On the plate The longest known cave system in the world. Nobody has reached the end of it.

ZeistSpecimen No. 12Archive

Pasture

An iOS app for Ollama that became Shio.

Open pasture.sh

Kind	Archive
Status	Evolved into Shio
Became	Shio
Habitat	iPhone and Mac
Since	2026; shelved in June 2026
Made with	Swift and SwiftUI; Ollama on the Mac
Plate	A pasture. 1931.

The problem

Local models ran on the Mac, but the phone had no honest way to talk to them.

The approach

A chat client for iPhone and Mac that talks to Ollama on your own machine, nothing in between: no account, no relay, no cloud.

What we learned

Chatting with a local model is not the product; reaching the machine is. As everything, Ollama included, moved to agents, the question changed, and the answer became Shio.

None. Its ideas live in Shio; pasture.sh stays up as the record.

On the plate An old horse in a snowy field. The print is called Vieillesse, old age.

ZeistSpecimen No. 13Archive

Foogl

A link shortener you host yourself, on your own domain.

Open foo.gl GitHub

Kind	Archive
Status	Evolved into Intuitive Software, as its Links module
Became	Intuitive Software
Habitat	Cloudflare Workers, on your own domain
Since	July 2026
Made with	Workers, Hono and D1; no build step
Plate	Rialto Bridge, Venice. Giovanni Battista Brustolon, 1763.

The problem

Link shorteners are either someone else's service with your links in their database, or a self-host project that costs a weekend of setup.

The approach

One click deploys it to your own Cloudflare account, on your own domain, with no build step. Links, clicks, expiry, targeting rules, a UTM builder, CSV export, an API if you want one. Nothing else.

What we learned

We benchmarked it against a thirty-seven-feature competitor and kept fourteen. Every feature not built is a screen nobody has to learn.

It carries on as the Links module of Intuitive Software.

On the plate For centuries the only bridge over the Grand Canal: the short way across.

ZeistSpecimen No. 14Archive

Formweh

Forms, waitlists, and surveys made easy to self-host.

Open formweh.com GitHub

Kind	Archive
Status	Evolved into Intuitive Software, as its Forms module
Became	Intuitive Software
Habitat	Cloudflare Workers, on your own domain
Since	July 2026
Made with	Workers and D1; open source, MIT
Plate	General Post Office, London. George Cooke, 1833.

The problem

Every form tool wants a subscription and keeps a copy of your submissions. A waitlist should not need an account with somebody else.

The approach

Forms, waitlists and surveys as one small Worker you deploy to your own Cloudflare account. Submissions land in your own database and your own inbox, and the embed is a line of HTML.

What we learned

A form is mostly an inbox. The product is the part that stays out of the way.

It carries on as the Forms module of Intuitive Software. The lab still collects its own signups on it.

On the plate London's letters came here to be sorted.

ZeistA noteAbout

About

Creating things that should exist.

Everything here started the same way: wanting something to exist that did not, or not well enough.

Some of it is software we use every day, some of it is a place for people. Games and research are next. All of it is made with care and kept in use.

What is no longer on the front of the table is kept at the far end of it, with what it taught us.

Each work has one print, cut from an old engraving of a real place chosen for it.

The name is a wooded town in the Netherlands, and an echo of zeitgeist.

Zeist

01Things4 works

02Spaces2 works

03Archive8 works

Amodal

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Primitives

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Timebase

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Outage Observer

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Samooh

The problem

The approach

Next

Foragers

The problem

The approach

Next

Intuitive Software

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Shio

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Medivalent

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Infer

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Stem

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Pasture

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Foogl

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

Formweh

The problem

The approach

What we learned

Next

About