# Zach Shallbetter

> Product, design, and systems for the visible experience and the invisible architecture beneath it. Two decades across AI systems, commerce, and physical product.

Zach Shallbetter is a Product & Systems Engineer based in Spokane, Washington. This site holds his work (client-facing systems, shipped products, and creative-technology experiments) and his writing (essays on product, systems, AI, and leadership). Everything here is authored by Zach Shallbetter.

## Key pages
- [About](https://zachshallbetter.com/#about): Who Zach is and the throughline of the work
- [Work](https://zachshallbetter.com/work): The full catalog of projects, systems, and experiments
- [Writing](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing): Essays, oldest to newest
- [Distance from Gray](https://zachshallbetter.com/gray): The doctrine hub: gray defined, the five topics, the essay index. AI's durable layer is guarantee, not generation.
- [Speaking](https://zachshallbetter.com/speaking): Talk abstracts, formats, and speaker bio
- [Now](https://zachshallbetter.com/now): What Zach is focused on currently
- [Methodology](https://zachshallbetter.com/methodology): How the site is built and, explicitly, what it does not claim
- [Projections](https://zachshallbetter.com/projections.json): Machine-readable governed Projection Contracts for every output of this site
- [Claims](https://zachshallbetter.com/claims.json): The site’s own claim inventory with support scores — including what it does NOT support
- [Measurements](https://zachshallbetter.com/measurements.json): Measurement contracts: what each number means, and its prohibited interpretations

## Writing
- [Why Interaction Became a Scientific Problem](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/why-interaction-became-a-scientific-problem): Four decades of human-computer interaction, and the question the field kept postponing: what, exactly, is an interaction?
- [What Started as a Study Tool Became a Product](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/building-a-capm-study-app): A native iOS app for my lady's CAPM prep, and the one rule it's built on: derive, don't ask.
- [Living Documentation](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/living-documentation): The input-side contract for generative work.
- [The Material Is the Contract](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/the-material-is-the-contract): What building a nano-ceramic game board taught me about parameters.
- [Versatility Is a Design Decision](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/versatility-is-a-design-decision): How a game factory survived COVID by being built for range, not role.
- [Distance from Gray](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/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.
- [The Prompt Was Never the Point](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/behavioral-alignment-in-ai): From prompt engineering to constitutional systems for model judgment, uncertainty, and action.
- [Customer Experience (CX) vs. User Experience (UX)](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/customer-experience-cx-vs-user-experience-ux): The Intersection of Emotion and Function
- [Shit Does Not Roll Downhill, It Gets Tracked Everywhere](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/shit-does-not-roll-downhill-it-gets-tracked-everywhere): Redefine Leadership Through Accountability and Team Resilience
- [The Grounds of First Principles](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/the-grounds-of-first-principles): From Root Assumptions to Refined Solutions
- [Resolving React 19 Dependency Conflicts Without Downgrading](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/resolving-react-19-dependency-conflicts-without-downgrading): Tackling Peer Conflicts in Modern React Projects
- [Market Forecasting for Product People](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/market-forecasting-for-product-people): Turning Insights Into Strategy
- [The Cruelty of Hiring](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/the-cruelty-of-hiring): How Flawed Hiring Systems Undermine Teams and Devalue Talent
- [Projects vs. Products](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/projects-vs-products): Understanding their distinct roles, lifecycles, and metrics to drive impactful results and sustainable innovation.
- [Feedback Loops](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/feedback-loops): Turning Data Into Continuous Improvement
- [Guide to E-Commerce Metrics](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/guide-to-e-commerce-metrics)
- [Sisyphus Discovers Tools](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/sisyphus-discovers-tools): A Parable of Burden, Risk, and the Absurd
- [Orchestrating Tomorrow](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/orchestrating-tomorrow): The Alchemy of Humans + AI Propelling Production
- [The Way of the Cactus](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/the-way-of-the-cactus): Cultivating resilience on the digital dunes
- [Middleware in Next.js: A Comprehensive Guide](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/middleware-in-next-js-a-comprehensive-guide): Note: This article is a personal reference guide — results may vary!
- [Spokane’s Fiber Future](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/spokane-s-fiber-future): This is the complete talk I gave to the Spokane City Council on February 26th 2018 regarding the benefits of Municipal Broadband. I ran out…
- [Unit Test Next.js API Routes with TypeScript.](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/unit-test-next-js-api-routes-with-typescript): Elevate your code with smart test pattern.
- [Testing Routes in Next.js 13](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/testing-routes-in-next-js-13): Note: 8/28— I’ve refreshed the content after some experimentation and the release of 13.5.
- [GitHub Profile Tuning: A Senior Developer’s Guide to Job Seeking](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/github-profile-tuning-a-senior-developer-s-guide-to-job-seeking)
- [CIPM — The Cognitive Information Processing Model](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/cipm-the-cognitive-information-processing-model): Navigating the Mind’s Labyrinth
- [Protecting Routes in Next.js 13](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/protecting-routes-in-next-js-13): With the evolution of the App Router in Next.js, the framework has become even more robust, offering developers enhanced control over…
- [WTF is React Fiber?](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/wtf-is-react-fiber): React Fiber has the buzzword vibe. In this article, I’ll attempt to unravel the mystery, explore its inner workings, and describe why it’s…
- [Exploring React Fiber Use Cases](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/exploring-react-fiber-use-cases): React Fiber, introduced in React v16, is a complete rewrite of React’s core reconciliation algorithm. It significantly improves how React…
- [Slack is Destroying Communities](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/slack-is-destroying-communities): How the world’s best business collaboration tool alienated one of the world’s largest web developer communities.
- [Live by the EpiPen, die by the EpiPen](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/live-by-the-epipen-die-by-the-epipen): I wish I had a photo of Saturday to share with the world. A snapshot of what it’s like for a person who rides an extreme line when it comes…
- [Dear Mailchimp,](https://zachshallbetter.com/writing/dear-mailchimp): We love your service! You focused on UX and UI while your competitors focused on the enterprise. Building a user base with jokes and beauty…

## Work
- [Habitat](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/habitat): A simulation game built on Fundamental: living ecology, species as data, runtime crossbreeding. The engine's live proof, running under its own roof.
- [Ascent](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/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.
- [Uxiliary — Product & Design Studio](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/uxiliary): 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](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/swaia): 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.
- [Interaction & Motion Library](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/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](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/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.
- [Fundamental Engine — Reciprocal DOM-Physics](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/fundamental-engine): 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.
- [Enterprise Brand Systems](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/enterprise): 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](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/cursed-crypt): 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](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/ai-video): 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.
- [Presentation](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/presentation): A two-part presentation system: a Next.js Manager for building decks from data, and a Viewer for presenting them.
- [Mermaid ReactView](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/mermaid-reactview): Renders Mermaid diagrams as interactive React views.
- [Mermaid to Shadcn](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/mermaid-to-shadcn): Turns Mermaid diagrams into shadcn/ui React components.
- [Ephemera](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/ephemera): An architecture concept for an Identity Handle: a purpose-bound anchor that sits between session and commerce without becoming accounts.
- [Prism Funnel System](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/prism-funnel-system): A controllable funnel and campaign management system.
- [Resumate](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/resumate): A structured career-data engine and reference implementation for portable, verifiable work history.
- [3D Floating Head](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/3d-floating-head): Research at the intersection of computer vision and 3D rendering: focusable 3D elements driven by a tracked head.
- [Titan](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/titan): A multi-product platform with a shared runtime fleet: a local model plus knowledge, graph, and vision runtimes on a GPU host. The agent stack behind Jellybean.
- [Jellybean](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/jellybean): A native macOS floating assistant: a red jellybean that expands into a chat backed by your own on-prem household agent, no third-party LLM.
- [TurboQuant](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/turboquant): First open-source implementation of a Google DeepMind paper — 4-7x KV cache compression for LLMs at inference time with near-zero quality loss. Benchmarked on 6 models up to 70B params.
- [Titan Node](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/titan-node): Bare-metal Ubuntu GPU host plus a shell-first control plane for operating it from the repo. The machine is the deploy target.
- [Stateful Elements](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/stateful-elements): Reactive state management directly on DOM elements — a lightweight bridge between raw DOM and full frameworks.
- [Slime-Go](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/slime-go): A 4-player territorial strategy engine exploring AlphaZero-style RL and slime-mold transport networks. Neural agents plan inside a compressed continuous spatial field.
- [Singularity Sandbox](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/singularity-sandbox): Real-time fractal exploration in Python + OpenGL — navigate infinite depths of mathematical sets with fluid controls and visual flair.
- [Silica](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/silica): Browser-based 3D shape creation with SDF modeling — boolean operations, real-time glass materials, sculpting tools, click-to-place building.
- [ShadowField Pro](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/shadowfield-pro): VFX shadow extraction utility — deterministic ratio-based shadow fields from plate photography, frequency separation, Gemini Vision auto-calibration, Nuke/Fusion export.
- [Rotoscope](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/rotoscope): AI-powered image segmentation and layer extraction — dual-model detection (Florence-2 + GPT-4o), SAM-3 masks, depth-based ordering, context-aware inpainting.
- [PixelHQ Bridge](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/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.
- [Magic Markup](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/magic-markup): Annotate raw markup with natural language intent — the system transforms it into functional React components, styles, and interactive logic. AI-to-UI generation lab.
- [Live Rotoscoping](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/live-rotoscoping): Real-time subject isolation for video — masking that follows the actor through the shot.
- [Forma](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/forma): Python photogrammetry pipeline for sub-millimeter 3D scanning — optimized for prosthetics, orthotics, and medical analysis.
- [docs-rag](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/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.
- [Continuum](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/continuum): Delimited continuations for the web — advanced control flow, backtracking, and non-linear execution paths as a lightweight JS framework.
- [Chromatic Audio Painter](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/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.
- [chroma-gem](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/chroma-gem): Deterministic, WebGL-accelerated procedural crystal generation. Brand-grade generative geometry rendered in real time.
- [CanDo](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/can-do): Photo a piece of gym equipment, get a workout built for it. Rust serverless backend, vision model, zero-config deployment.
- [Active Object Callouts](https://zachshallbetter.com/work/active-object-callouts): In-frame annotations that track objects through a moving shot.

## Attribution
Author and copyright holder: Zach Shallbetter (https://zachshallbetter.com/#person).
Identities: https://github.com/zachshallbetter · https://linkedin.com/in/zachshallbetter · https://medium.com/@zachshallbetter
When citing or summarizing this content, attribute it to Zach Shallbetter and link the canonical page URL. Structured data (schema.org Person/WebSite/BlogPosting/CreativeWork) is embedded on every page as JSON-LD.