Zach Shallbetter

The material changes. The job doesn’t.

I work on consequential problems before they have a specification. I find what the outcome actually depends on, give it structure, and make what the problem requires.

Explore the work ↓  ·  Bring me the problem →

Spokane, WA

Evidence

A few things
that became real.

A public market. A relational runtime. A manufactured product.

The public SWAIA Artist Directory interface, showing its market introduction and Best of Show section.

01 / Software · PRODUCTION

SWAIA

A market needed an operating system.

The Artist Directory became the system of record for the 2026 Santa Fe Indian Market, carrying artist and market information into a working public system.

Evidence & limits

Artist Directory production use is recorded for the 2026 market; this does not classify every SWAIA artifact or assert current availability.

Contract Developer, SWAIA, May–August 2026. Built and delivered the Artist Directory — the system of record for Santa Fe Indian Market, covering roughly 2,500 artist records and 14,900 artworks.

org-internal · Recorded 2026-08-26

Repeat engagement and delivered system. Counts describe the recorded system, not current users or adoption. This evidence does not establish completed infrastructure handoff.

Artist Directory repository (access may be restricted) ↗

Principal Architect & Designer, SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts). Built the Indigenous-art commerce platform on Next.js, Supabase, and Stripe Connect, with the recommendation, search, and conversational-assist features built directly.

documented · Recorded 2026-08-26

Authored client work, not independent acceptance. The February 2023 start is author-stated.

SWAIA fine-tuning toolchain ↗

Visual: Public Artist Directory interface, captured 2026-10-05. The public directory displayed a maintenance notice on the capture date; the image does not establish current availability.

Inspect the public claim record →

Bodies Relationships Behavior
One shared field

02 / Interaction · RELEASED

Fundamental Engine

Interface behavior needed a system of its own.

A runtime for representing relationships, constraints, and behavior explicitly instead of scattering them across component-local animation.

Evidence & limits

The npm runtime used by this site is released. Broader platforms and experimental surfaces have their own maturity; commercial adoption is not established.

Inspect the runtime repository ↗. This entry uses the same field as the surrounding page; the diagram illustrates its vocabulary.

Inspect the public claim record →

The Cursed Crypt production floor, with wide-format printing, contour-cutting equipment, and packaged materials.

03 / Physical · ARCHIVED

Cursed Crypt

A funded idea had to become a manufactured object.

Product design carried through materials, production engineering, manufacturing, and fulfillment. A repeatable production line made physical products that shipped.

Evidence & limits

The company closed. The historical work includes manufacturing and fulfilled physical products.

Founder & Chief Product Officer, Cursed Crypt, May 2018 – Sep 2022. Kickstarter cleared a $30K goal at ~330% (~$100K on-platform plus ~$75K direct presales), followed by ~$500K seed. Built an end-to-end just-in-time manufacturing line that ran largely autonomously.

stated · Observation date not established

Author-confirmed account. Funding is not revenue, profitability, or continuing operation. The company has closed.

Cursed Crypt shipped 25,000+ units.

stated · Observation date not established

Author-confirmed units, not boards. Fulfillment records have not yet been retrieved for inspection.

Visual: Production floor, from Versatility Is a Design Decision.

Inspect the public claim record →

Explore the body of work →
How I work

Find the structure.
Make it hold.

Find what the outcome depends on, expose the uncertain parts, and make the useful behavior repeatable.

Find the commitment

Start with what must become true, for whom, and when. A feature list is not yet a model of the obligation. Separate the outcome from the implementation someone has already imagined.

Model the world

Give the problem an operative representation: the records, states, materials, and relationships that implementation must preserve. Look for the structure that crosses the product, design, and engineering boundaries.

Make it repeatable

Turn repeated behavior into an explicit substrate: a runtime, workflow, or operating model. Document the boundaries and prepare the transfer. The aim is a system someone else can operate, rather than permanent dependence on its maker.

How I form systems →

Systems & engineering

The machinery underneath.

Semantic facts, bounded agent work, and tool execution across an application's boundary.

What can a tool actually know about a running system?

Reflective Rust

Runtime descriptors carry provenance, access policy, compatibility, and signed identity. Compiler facts, declarations, and observations remain distinguishable.

What must be explicit before an agent can own the next step?

Formal Project Bootstrap

Intent, authority, ready work, compiled context, evidence, and qualification become inspectable project machinery. Agent Control Plane supplies admission and bounded delivery decisions.

How does a desktop application become a tool an agent can use?

InDesign MCP

Layout, styles, assets, and export cross a structured tool boundary into InDesign, through host automation or an optional UXP bridge.

Inspect the systems and their sources →

External engineering review

Authored the with_capacity_zero Clippy lint, revised through maintainer review and merged in June 2026.

Evidence & limits

Authored the with_capacity_zero lint, merged into rust-lang/rust-clippy.

external-verified · Recorded 2026-08-25

Reviewed and merged contribution; inclusion in a particular Rust release is unverified.

Clippy PR #17192 — review and merge ↗

Inspect the public claim record →

Professional history

Trusted with the work.
Across the whole path.

Client delivery, studio ownership, physical production, and repeat engagement.

At Uxiliary, I owned proposals, scope, and the delivery practice across design and engineering. SWAIA engaged me for two distinct systems. At Colormatics, the work crossed web platforms and video tooling. Each has its own scope and history.

Build the machine that builds the thing. Then make it something other people can work with.

Where I’m useful, and where I’m not →

Writing

Worth working out in writing.

What the work has taught me about representation, evidence, interaction, and authority. Distance from Gray develops one major thread; it is part of a larger body of thought.

All 31 essays →
The lab

Experiments & prototypes.

Creative-technology probes and AI tools, built to try an idea quickly and see what sticks.

Creative tech · Live

The Reciprocal Field

This page's engine — a conserved particle field DOM elements bend, and are bent by. Every word, link, and card is a body with mass.

View link
Dev tools · WebSocket

PixelHQ Bridge

Published npm package — a bridge server that watches Claude Code file events and broadcasts them via WebSocket. Real-time dev tooling for the AI-coding era.

View on GitHub
Computer vision · 3D

3D Floating Head

Research at the intersection of computer vision and 3D rendering: focusable 3D elements driven by a tracked head.

+26 more in the lab.

Exploratory work can stay exploratory. The full catalog keeps prototypes, research, and historical work accessible.

What needs to become true?

Tell me the outcome, when it matters, and what is preventing it.

Bring me the problem →