One person who can't quite choose between the workshop and the terminal.
Kerf and Code is Terry Mickail — a Seattle studio of one, building a small number of honest, well-made things.
The name is a promise about how the work gets done. A kerf is the slit a saw leaves behind — the material a cut removes. It's what you have to plan around if you want two pieces to meet cleanly. Code is the other way I make things. Put them together and you get the whole idea: build carefully, account for what your cut takes away, and join the pieces so the seam holds. Measure twice. Cut once. Ship something you'd be happy to be handed.
Most software is built to capture you. I'd rather build things that respect you and still earn their keep.
Measurement, then craft
I came to software sideways, through measurement. My background is in cognitive science and applied statistics — years spent turning noisy, human data into answers you could actually trust, and learning exactly how easy it is to fool yourself with a small sample and a hopeful chart. That's the part I care about most, and it's the thread running through everything here.
It's why Six Axes doesn't just summarise your game night — it measures it, so it can tell you your "Moderate" fights are landing like Hard ones. It's why Litmus shows you the spectrum of your reading without ever scolding or guessing at a person. And it's why the free tools exist at all: they're the honest-statistics rules I use myself, made small enough to hand to anyone testing an ad, a survey, an idea, or a product drop.
What's on the bench
Two products are live and in the wild; two more are further up the grain.
SpoolStack is the next one taking shape — a run log for people who make physical things. One event log, four views: log every 3D print, CNC cut, or laser job; get honest job-costing with a real failure rate baked in, and calibration advice that sharpens as your history grows. It's the most literal expression of the studio's name: measurement in service of making, with the same respect for your data as everything else.
The free tools started life as the internal instruments behind these products — a Bayesian A/B tester for tiny ad budgets, a survey-question linter, an evidence scorer, a demand smoke-test. They were too useful to keep in a drawer, so they're out here, free and client-side, forever.
What the studio stands for
Honesty over hype
Show the uncertainty. Say what a thing can't do. No false precision, no manufactured urgency.
Your data is yours
On your device where possible. Exportable and deletable always. Never sold, never used to train models.
Craft over churn
Few products, finished properly. A visible joint is a promise that the hidden ones hold too.
Small on purpose
A studio, not a startup treadmill. Small enough to answer your email; careful enough to be worth it.
Built to last
Plain technology, no lock-in, tools that keep working. Made to be maintained, not churned.
Made in Seattle
One workshop, one standard, in the Pacific Northwest — rain, coffee, and long build cycles.
Say hello
Feedback on a product, a pilot invite for your table, or just to compare notes on measurement and making — I read everything myself.