A one-person software studio

We build our own software with AI, and we show the work.

Northwood Code is led by a product manager, not a developer. We write the spec, let a panel of AI reviewers argue with it, build with Claude Code, and ship. Then we say what broke.

Products

Two products you can use today.

Both are live, and we use both ourselves. Each one started as a written spec and was built with Claude Code.

The Phokii goals shelf: a row of books, one per goal, each showing its next starred action.

Phokii phokii.com

Got a goal? Leave with a plan.

You bring the goal. Your own ChatGPT or Claude writes the plan, or you take one that someone who knows the ground already wrote. Phokii is where the plan stands afterwards. One book per goal, and everything for that goal inside it.

Built with Claude Code Open Phokii →
The Smartifakt home page: Your PRD, signed off, above a grid of review sections with comment counts.

Smartifakt smartifakt.com

Your PRD, signed off.

Paste a product requirements document that Claude wrote. Share one link. Your experts comment on the exact words, every thread closes with a decision, and one command hands the whole review back to Claude Code. The document itself is never edited.

Built with Claude Code Open Smartifakt →
How we build

The spec does the heavy lifting. The AI does the typing.

Every product here follows the same four steps. None of them is a secret.

Write the spec

Every product starts as a written document. It says what the problem is, who it is for, and what the product will not do.

Let reviewers argue

A panel of AI reviewers, each playing a different expert, reads the spec and tries to break it. The spec changes before any code exists.

Build with Claude Code

Claude Code writes the code from the spec. Our job is the product decisions: the scope, the cuts, and the trade-offs.

Ship and watch

Real users find real bugs. What breaks gets written up and fixed, not hidden.

Northwood Games

Weekend games, built with our kids.

The kids draw the characters on paper and take a photo. The drawing goes straight into the game. Each game runs in the browser, so you can play right here.

The three Home games play best on a phone or an iPad held upright. Paint Palloza likes an iPad and a pencil. The copies here use our drawn placeholder art. The kids' own drawings stay at home.

In testing

Sideline

A lineup planner for youth soccer coaches. Enter the roster once and tick who showed up. Pick a formation for each quarter. Auto-fill gives everyone fair playing time and rotates the keeper. Print one page for the sideline.

We are testing it with one team this season. Try it with yours, and tell us what breaks.

Sideline: four quarter pitches side by side with a roster panel on the left.
About

Northwood Code is a one-person studio run on evenings and weekends. I have a full-time job I'm happy in, and I'm not looking for another one. The studio builds its own products and takes on a small number of fixed-scope projects a year, one at a time.

Paul, Northwood Code

Contact

Write to us.

hello@northwoodcode.com

We reply within a few days. If you want to talk about a fixed-scope project, say what it is and when you need it.