← menagerie labs

current work

menagerie labs

/məˈnajərē labs/

proper noun · the laboratory itself

Status: Ongoing experiment

1.

men·ag·er·ie /məˈnajərē/ · noun
A space of careful observation and patient discovery, where ideas are given room to breathe and evolve naturally in their own time.

2.

labs /labs/ · noun
An environment dedicated to methodical exploration and precise implementation, where theoretical concepts transform into tangible outcomes.

3.

men·ag·er·ie labs /məˈnajərē labs/ · proper noun
A synthesis of patient observation and decisive action. A space where ideas are not merely contained, but carefully cultivated and ultimately released into the world.

Contact

menagerie labs

field notes

initial recognition

The frontier of possibility expands faster than traditional development cycles can explore.

core hypothesis

When technical constraints dissolve, imagination and purpose become the primary bottlenecks to meaningful creation.

method

Direct exploration through building—treating each project as both outcome and investigation into what's newly possible.

guiding principles

Abundance thinking, invention over innovation, curiosity as the most valuable currency in accelerating change.

current discovery

The laboratory methodology itself may be as valuable as any individual thing built within it.

Contact

learned raccoon

lûr′nĭd răk-koon′

n. literary exploration tool

Status: Prototype shipped

1.

A tool for discovering what resonates in books you love, revealing elements that shape your reading experience.

2.

An application that creates thoughtful pathways between books that have moved you and those that await discovery.

3.

From the raccoon's natural tendency for careful examination combined with the considered application of knowledge.

Try it out

learned raccoon

field notes

observation

Searching for books by genre felt limiting. Initial experiments with AI-assisted book discovery revealed something more interesting than recommendation algorithms—a way to understand what we truly love about the books that move us.

investigation

Three convergent threads emerged: the inadequacy of traditional book categorization, the challenge of creating something both beautiful and useful with AI assistance, and the arrival of new agentic coding capabilities that made rapid prototyping possible.

implementation

Rather than building another recommendation engine, we created a tool for literary introspection. It helps readers articulate what resonates in their beloved books, then uses that understanding to suggest new discoveries based on deeper literary elements rather than surface categories.

outcome

The prototype demonstrated that generative intelligence excels not just at finding patterns, but at helping humans recognize patterns within themselves. The tool became a bridge between unconscious reading preferences and conscious literary exploration.

Try it out

Additional explorations and projects will appear here as they reach stages of coherent contribution to the practice.