Humane Infrastructure
Building for the people who maintain systems, not just those who use them. Good infra stays out of your way until you need it.
df12
Payton McIntosh
[email protected]The software gremlin behind df12, building small sharp tools, humane infra and retro-tinted experiments in code, maps, audio and story.
About
Payton has spent years leading teams in large organisations — long enough to know where the sharp edges hide. df12 is their way of turning that scar tissue into a coherent boutique studio instead of a junkyard of side projects.
Based in Edinburgh, Scotland
Mediaeval skyline, liminal closes, and a surprisingly feral little tech scene.
Focus Areas
Legible Systems
If you can't reason about a system, you can't trust it. Observability isn't an add-on — it's the foundation everything else rests on.
Calmer AI Tooling
AI workflows fail in novel ways. The answer isn't more guardrails — it's designing for graceful degradation and predictable recovery.
Design Principles
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1
Small, Sharp Tools
Each tool does one thing exceptionally well. No bloat, no feature creep, just focused utility.
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2
5-Minute Success Path
From installation to first successful run in under five minutes. Every tool includes quickstart documentation.
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3
Repeatability Over Magic
Predictable behaviour across environments. Green-path repeatability means fewer surprises in production.
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4
Respect Cognitive Load
Systems should be legible and unsurprising. Complexity exists in the implementation, not the interface.