Ascent
A native SwiftUI iOS exam-prep app, shipped to TestFlight with Sign in with Apple and in-app purchases. Adaptive SRS study plans, anonymous-first sync.
Zach Shallbetter — Product & Systems Engineer
Build the machine that builds the thing.
Engines, factories, platforms, and the products on top of them. Currently: Distance from Gray, the case that AI's next durable layer is guarantee, not generation.
Spokane, WA · Designer → Engineer → Founder
/now
What I'm working on right now.
A live snapshot of where the field is moving this month. The full picture — including what I'm open to — lives on the /now page →
Building
- fundamental-engine — the engine behind this site. Released alongside this rebuild.
- indesign-mcp-server — public Model Context Protocol server for Adobe InDesign. 135+ tools, actively maintained.
Thinking about
- How contract-driven discipline from a physical line translates to software at platform scale.
- The shape of AI interaction past the prompt box — interfaces that adapt around intent and trust.
The throughline
I re-enter problems until they hold.
A designer and illustrator who became an engineer, then a founder.
Where it starts Designer & illustrator Form, composition, the feel of a thing before it works. Then became an engineer Architecture, data, services — the structure that makes it real. Now and a founder The whole system — prototype to real users, running on its own.
What repeats across twenty years is narrower than the job titles. Ten attempts at light through glass. Ten at pulling structure out of an image. Six at identity that proves something without storing it. Each pass better instrumented than the last, and the parts that hardened became the runtimes everything else runs on.
There are protocols behind products nobody asked for protocols about, for the same reason.
I've built more than I've sold. The work now is fixing that in the direction of customers rather than more capability.
Work & experiments
Things I've built.
Client-facing systems and the architecture beneath them, plus the smaller probes, AI tools, and prototypes I build to test ideas.
Cookie Cruncher
A snack-clicker toy.
Uxiliary — Product & Design Studio
A digital product and design studio directing a team of ten-plus across design and engineering, for clients from startups to Fortune 500 — Amazon, MassMutual, Novo Nordisk — owning proposals, scope, and daily delivery cadence.
SWAIA — AI Commerce Platform
An Indigenous-art marketplace on Next.js, Supabase, and Stripe Connect — seller verification, customizable storefronts, product customization, and advanced search. Recommendation, semantic search, and conversational assist built directly into the shopping experience.
Enterprise Brand Systems
National-brand campaigns and web systems — GE, GM, Adobe, Gilead, Celebrity Cruises — built through agencies including AKQA and Mekanism. Earlier: led the OpenEye website and CMS rebuild that drove a 320% increase in leads.
Cursed Crypt — Self-Running Factory
A tabletop-gaming hardware company taken from a Kickstarter at ~330% of goal through a ~$500K seed to an end-to-end, just-in-time facility that ran largely on its own — achieved by re-engineering machines, commissioning custom equipment, and inventing proprietary coatings and processes.
AI Video Production Tools
An innovation division building AI for video and post-production — live rotoscoping, active object callouts, in-camera image masking — with the product strategy, architecture, and prototype direction behind them.
Systems made
Systems that build the thing.
The substantial systems — an engine, a commerce core, a motion library — built to be run by a team, not shipped once.
Engine · v0.1.0Live
Fundamental Engine — Reciprocal DOM-Physics
A framework-agnostic engine where every meaningful thing on a page — a word, a card, a link — is a body in a particle field. Elements bend the field; the field's density bends the elements back. 30 forces, zero runtime dependencies. This site runs on it.
Habitat
A simulation game built on Fundamental: living ecology, species as data, runtime crossbreeding. The engine's live proof, running under its own roof.
Interaction & Motion Library
Interface behavior as a system — state, feedback, transitions, and rhythm captured as reusable motion primitives that hold from brand to code.
indesign-mcp-server
A Model Context Protocol server that brings AI-driven design automation to Adobe InDesign — 135+ programmatic tools, active maintenance, public on GitHub.
SWAIA Storefront System
A themeable storefront and product-customization system for Indigenous-art sellers — branded components on one shared commerce core.
The lab
Experiments & prototypes.
Creative-technology probes and AI tools, built to try an idea quickly and see what sticks.
In development
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 In development
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 In development
3D Floating Head
Research at the intersection of computer vision and 3D rendering: focusable 3D elements driven by a tracked head.
In development
Active Object Callouts
In-frame annotations that track objects through a moving shot.
In development
CanDo
Photo a piece of gym equipment, get a workout built for it. Rust serverless backend, vision model, zero-config deployment.
View on GitHub In development
chroma-gem
Deterministic, WebGL-accelerated procedural crystal generation. Brand-grade generative geometry rendered in real time.
View on GitHub In development
Chromatic Audio Painter
A multi-mode audio visualizer — fractal spectrums, 3D chaos clouds, spectral wash curtains — all reacting to live audio input in real time.
View on GitHub In development
docs-rag
Standalone local RAG agent — point it at a folder of Markdown docs, it builds a vector index and answers questions with Ollama. No cloud, no API keys.
+21 more in the lab.
The full catalog — 41 projects, systems, and probes — with write-ups and links to examples.
The practice
A practice that spans the whole product.
Research is the sensing layer — how the field becomes visible. Before a system can be shaped, its forces have to be read: user behavior, business pressure, technical constraint, material limit, and the unstated assumption already moving through the work.
01 Product strategyAttract · gives directionVision · roadmaps · R&D · product logic · operating models 02 AI systemsJet · channels forceLLMs · semantic search · recommendations · context · trust 03 Software architectureTether · gives structurePlatforms · APIs · data · payments · deployment · performance 04 Experience designWall · the human surfaceFlows · IA · usability · accessibility · journeys · behavior 05 MotionStream · reveals motionState · feedback · transitions · rhythm · interface behavior 06 CommerceRepel · market pressureCatalogs · checkout · sellers · payments · fulfillment · trust 07 Physical productionViscosity · adds constraintMaterials · prototypes · packaging · manufacturing · delivery 08 Creative technologySwirl · spins it togetherAI · code · animation · 3D · prototypes · experiments
Every card here is a body in the field. Read the manual →
Density
What the work weighs.
Two decades resolved into the numbers that moved.
330%
of Kickstarter goal funded for Cursed Crypt
Hardware · 2018
$500K
seed capital raised after launch
Founder · CPO
20 yrs
across software, AI, commerce, and physical product
The throughline
Every number here declares its construct, its uncertainty, and what it may not be used to mean. → /measurements.json
Reach
Agency-side, 2007–2013. Contributor on national campaigns; the systems work came later.
GEGMAdobeGileadAmazonCelebrity CruisesMassMutualNovo NordiskSlim JimClif Bar
Beyond the build
Leadership & recognition.
The work spreads past the product — into community, teaching, and the awards that marked the way.
Inland Northwest Technologists
A regional tech nonprofit (501c3): 50+ volunteers, 200+ community events, a municipal-broadband initiative carried to a unanimous council vote, and a merger that expanded its reach.
AAF Spokane
Chaired the interactive program for the regional American Advertising Federation chapter — connecting designers, developers, and the brands they build for.
North Idaho College
Built and taught an interdisciplinary web & UX curriculum, started a student-led consultancy, and established industry internship and placement pipelines.
Writing
Worth working out in writing.
Essays going back to 2016 — on product, systems, AI, leadership, and whatever else has been worth thinking through.
All 31 essays →
Distance from Gray
Why the next durable layer of AI value is a guarantee, not a generation — and why owning the transformation seam beats managing unreliability at the product layer.
Jun 2026Living Documentation
The input-side contract for generative work.
Jul 2026
Versatility Is a Design Decision
How a game factory survived COVID by being built for range, not role.
Jul 2026The Material Is the Contract
What building a nano-ceramic game board taught me about parameters.
Jul 2026All 31 essays
Everything, going back to 2016 — essays on product, systems, AI, and leadership.