- Contents
- 04 Small tools
Small software tools that each do one job, and stay on graph paper until they can prove it.
This is the small software tools direction of an Austin office, and it is in study. There are sketches. There is no app, no beta, no download link and no waiting list. Each sketch describes a single-purpose utility, and none has yet passed the test written further down this page.
What is on the desk and what is not
The keyboard is in the room. It is mostly used to write letters. The tools themselves are still pencil.
Fourteen sketches on 5 mm grid
Each one fits on a single letter sheet of graph paper. If a tool needs a second sheet to explain, it is two tools, or it is not a small tool and does not belong on this page.
A written test
Five questions a sketch has to answer before a line of code is written. It is short on purpose. It is reproduced below so you can hold us to it.
Anything you can install
No app store listing, no browser extension, no repository, no sign-up. If a link anywhere claims to be a Xavriqon tool, it is not ours.
The test a tool must pass before it leaves paper
A sketch fails if it misses any one of these. Twelve of the fourteen have failed at least once. Two are still being argued over.
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It does one job, stated in nine words or fewer
"Spell a name back the way a phone caller hears it." That is a job. "Help teams manage naming workflows" is a category, and categories grow settings pages. Settings pages are where small tools go to die.
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We already did the job by hand at least twenty times
A tool for a task nobody repeats is a toy. The naming work gives us real repetitions to count, which is why most sketches come out of it. The count is kept in pencil tally marks in the corner of each sheet.
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It needs no account
If it cannot work without knowing who you are, it is collecting something, and then it needs a privacy notice and someone answering data requests under Texas law within 45 days. That is a business, not a utility.
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It works offline and keeps working in five years
No server it depends on, no third-party service that can be switched off underneath it. A single file you could put on a drive and forget about. Most modern software fails this one, deliberately.
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A stranger finishes the job without instructions
We hand the paper sketch to someone who has not seen it and say nothing. If they point at the wrong box first, the sketch goes back. Paper makes this test cheap. Code makes it expensive and tempting to skip.
Why paper first
An eraser is cheaper than a refactor
Rubbing out a box on graph paper takes four seconds. Removing a feature from shipped software takes a week and usually a migration. So the arguing happens in pencil.
The 5 mm grid is not decoration. It forces every control onto a fixed rhythm, and a sketch that needs half-squares to fit is a sketch with too much in it. We use a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil with HB lead because it erases clean, and a white vinyl eraser because pink rubber leaves a smear that reads as a ghost box when the sheet is photocopied for the stranger test.
The failure mode we see most often in small software projects is scope creep dressed as kindness. Someone asks for an export. Then a login so the export can be saved. Then a team plan so two people can share the login. Eighteen months later the single-purpose utility is a subscription product with a pricing page, and the original job takes more clicks than it did before. We would rather ship nothing than ship that.
Which is, for now, exactly what we are doing.
Sketch ledger
Where the fourteen sketches stand
A tally, kept the same way it is kept on the wall in Suite 4. Counts change after every stranger test.
| Result | Count | Typical reason |
|---|---|---|
| Failed test 1 | 5 | Job could not be said in nine words. |
| Failed test 2 | 3 | We had done the task fewer than twenty times. |
| Failed test 3 or 4 | 2 | Needed an account or a server to be useful. |
| Failed test 5 | 2 | Stranger pressed the wrong box first. |
| Still on the table | 2 | Both from the naming work. Neither coded. |
| Shipped | 0 | Nothing has passed all five. |
What people ask about the tools
Can I try a beta?
There is no beta. There is no code. If you want to be the stranger in test five, say so in a letter and include your city; the test is done on paper, in person, in Austin.
Will you build a tool for my company?
No. This is not a development shop and we do not take client software work. A freelance developer with a clear brief will serve you far better than an office that sketches in pencil.
I have an idea for a single-purpose utility. Should I send it?
Only if you are fine with us not building it and not owing you anything if we later sketch something similar. Ideas are read, not bought, and nothing you send creates an agreement. The terms say this in more formal words.
Who is this direction not for?
Anyone who needs software this quarter. If your need is real and dated, look elsewhere today. If you have an opinion about one of the five tests, that letter is welcome.
How quickly will someone reply?
Letters are read. A reply goes out only when it is relevant, with no timeline, because this direction is in study. The fit checker shows which directions carry a three-business-day reply target and which do not.
Write to the office about small tools
A view on the test, an offer to be the stranger, a tool you think already does the job. Read and kept with the sketches.
Austin, Texas 33038