Made by one person, slowly.

I’m Gorgan— a software developer working from the US Midwest. Yewmark is one of a handful of small, opinionated things I’ve built and maintained over the years. There isn’t an agency, a studio, or a “Labs” team behind the name. One person wrote the code, picked the fonts, drafts the email templates, and reads every reply at [email protected].

Yewmark exists because I wanted a careful, unhurried place to keep pages without the journaling-app industry’s usual scaffolding — streaks, prompts, mood pickers shown before you’ve written a word. The product’s discipline about what it isn’t is its shape. The principles page is the long version.

I built it for the version of my own life that’s there most days: caring for an older family member, keeping a small group of projects from collapsing in the corners, and grateful when there’s a fifteen-minute window to set the day down before the next one starts. The product fits those windows because the windows are what I have. The longer story is on the blog.

A few small, opinionated tools and one stubborn open-source game. Same instinct in all of them: software should fit a real life without dragging anyone through marketing scaffolding.

• LeakWardenA security scanner that watches code repositories for exposed files and hardcoded secrets.
• Shards of BritanniaA community-driven multiplayer RPG server, in the spirit of early Ultima Online.
• FocusHUDA small Windows overlay with a Pomodoro timer and idle detection — quiet help, not a productivity dashboard.
• Democracy ObserverA legislative voting tracker and civic accountability monitor.
• Merlin the WizardA desktop LLM companion with voice in and out, sitting on top of whatever you’re already doing.

The complete list, with source code where applicable, lives at gorgan.dev.

Made by Gorgan in the USA, served from the Netherlands for privacy. The choice of host puts stored data under EU data-protection law — generally more protective than US equivalents. The operator (me) is under US jurisdiction; stored data is under EU law. Two jurisdictions, both small but true.

If Yewmark grows enough that a US-side host makes sense — latency, redundancy, capacity — I’ll add one alongside the Netherlands box rather than replace it. The current shape isn’t locked in forever; it’s the right shape for now.

Next.js + React + Tailwind on the front; FastAPI + Postgres on the back. AI traffic flows through third-party providers on business tiers that contractually forbid training on API inputs — the categories are spelled out on the privacy page, and entries can be marked private to opt any individual piece out of every AI feature. Display type is Newsreader; body is IBM Plex Sans. Paper-and-ink palette, day and night themes.