First I called it Dryft, but that was taken.
Then I tried Ryft. Taken.
Seska? Ugh.
Ardra? Dammit!.
Laya? Of course that's taken.
And on and on and on..
Eventually I said "screw it!".
So just use ThisDamnThing.
ThisDamnThing
A persistent local workspace for AI agents. Keep your knowledge, projects, rules
and reusable workflows together, even when you switch agents.
Claude Code and Codex do the work. ThisDamnThing keeps the context: a reviewed
knowledge brain, your workspace Constitution, linked projects, skills and Stacks.
Use either agent, or both, with the same workspace. Your knowledge stays in
readable Markdown files on your machine.
[!NOTE]
TDT installation has been verified on Linux and macOS. Native Windows
installation remains unverified. Report what works or any issues through GitHub Issues.
Make your workspace your own
| Feature | What you can do |
|---|
| Build your brain | Keep useful facts and decisions as linked Markdown notes. Choose what to remember through review. |
| Find answers with sources | Ask your brain questions and get references to approved knowledge. |
| Give your agents rules | Set working preferences and boundaries with a workspace Constitution. |
| Use ThisDamnThing's UI | Say “use ui” to answer questions and work through choices in a local browser. |
| Bring your projects | Link existing project folders and get oriented without moving their source. |
| Extend with Stacks | Install optional packages of skills, workflows, knowledge, templates and local capabilities. |
Install and create a workspace
You need Python 3.11+ and pipx. Install Claude Code or Codex separately if you
want an agent integration.
Ask your agent:
Install and set up ThisDamnThing via pipx, create a workspace at [my chosen directory],
and check it.
Replace the bracketed directory with your preferred location. Setup has no
ThisDamnThing skill before installation. Open the created workspace in your agent,
review its workspace and hook trust prompts, and use /tdt-workspace in
Claude or $tdt-workspace in Codex, or select it from the skill picker.
For terminal setup, run these examples from a parent directory outside your
projects and the ThisDamnThing source checkout. Paths are relative to that directory.
pipx install thisdamnthing
tdt init "./my workspace"
tdt --workspace "./my workspace" doctor
You can also cd into your chosen folder and run tdt init without a path
to initialize the current directory, then run tdt doctor.
Choose a workspace folder outside your existing projects. If pipx asks you to
update PATH, follow its instructions and reopen your shell. ThisDamnThing starts with
zero stacks and detects Claude and Codex on PATH. Add --agent claude,
--agent codex, --agent both or --agent none to init to choose explicitly.
Existing unrelated files are preserved; conflicting files are refused.
Read the usage guides, or open the local guides in
your workspace's docs/ folder.
Developing ThisDamnThing
Working on ThisDamnThing itself? Start with the developer documentation
for setup, architecture and development practices. Open this source checkout in
your agent and say “onboard me” for guided development setup.
Development setup · Architecture ·
Making a change
Licensed under Apache-2.0.
If you find any bugs, it's because I left them there, so I have something to do later.
