How I work

The method, the packages, and what's under the hood.

The home page is the short version. This is the detail — how engagements are shaped, what you can buy, who it suits, and the technical specifics for whoever on your side asks.

The method

The method matters more than the technology.

Every engagement is shaped the same way, so you always know what you're buying and when it ends.

  • A paid spec before any buildScope, price, and timeline written down and agreed before code starts. You own the document either way — if you take it somewhere else, it still works. That's the point of paying for it instead of sitting through a sales call.
  • Fixed priceQuoted after the spec, not adjusted after the fact. If I estimated badly, that's mine to absorb.
  • One named deliverableNot a general engagement. A specific thing that either exists at the end or doesn't.
  • A hard end dateWeeks, not quarters. Projects that can't be finished in weeks get cut into pieces that can.
  • Your accounts, not mineYour hosting, your API keys, your repository, your data. I work inside them and hand back the keys, because a system that only runs on my logins isn't finished.
  • Everything is handed overDocumentation written for the person who inherits it, not for me — plus your accounts and your keys. If the only way to operate the thing is to call me, I built it wrong.
  • One assessment and one build at a timeScope gets protected rather than stacked. It's what keeps the end dates real.

Packages

Fixed price, named deliverable, hard end date.

Every build is gated by a paid spec, so nobody is guessing at scope when work starts, and the spec fee credits toward the build. The price comes back fixed, in writing, before you commit to anything.

Most people start here

AI and Automation Assessment

2–3 weeks

Your systems and workflows inventoried, three to five automation opportunities scored by effort and payoff, a one-page AI governance policy, and a roadmap that says what to do first — and what to leave alone. The fee credits toward any build it recommends, and it satisfies the spec requirement, so there's no second spec fee.

Content and Publishing Pipeline

about 4 weeks

Request to published draft, wired into the tools your staff already open every morning, with human approval built into the last step rather than bolted on. Nobody has to learn a new system.

Data and API Integration

2–4 weeks

Two systems that don't talk, made to talk. CRM sync, membership data migration, feed automation. Cleanup of the data you inherited is usually part of it, and usually the part that takes longest.

Document Search with Citations

4–6 weeks

Your own documents, searchable in plain English, with every answer cited back to the file it came from. Scoped to the shape of your document set during the spec.

Paid Spec gates every build

Scope, fixed price, and timeline in writing before work starts, with the fee credited to the build. Paid beats free because you end up with a document you own either way, instead of a sales call.

Ops Retainer optional, per system

Monitoring, model and API updates as vendors change them underneath you, small changes, and a one-page report each month. A build works without one — what you're buying is not having to track vendor changes yourself.

Who this is for

If you own a workflow that's eating your week, you're who I build for.

Nonprofits, associations, and services firms of roughly 10 to 75 people — and it helps if you can get to whoever signs the check. The title matters less than whether you can name the workflow.

Timing tends to matter more than size. The best moment is a growth spurt: the manual process that worked at twelve people stops working at thirty, and that's usually when someone finally goes looking.

What I don't do: brand, design systems, full-site strategy. If that's the actual need, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.

Working together

  • Typically able to start within two weeks.
  • Scoping questions answered the same business day.
  • One call before you pay for anything.

Under the hood

For the technical person who'll ask.

StackPython and FastAPI services · Postgres · Cloudflare Workers, D1, KV · WordPress and PHP at a senior level · Okta SSO · MCP for tool integration · multi-provider language-model orchestration with fallback, so one vendor's bad afternoon isn't your outage.

If it has an API — or even just an export button — it can usually be wired in. Anything outward-facing keeps a human approving it, and personal information gets redacted at the boundary before it reaches a model.

Tell me what's costing you the most time.

Describe the workflow, and I'll tell you what I think it takes — or that it isn't worth doing. If it looks like a fit, we'll get on a call before you pay for anything.

jacob@filerlabs.com Back to the short version

Who you'd be working with

Filer Labs is one person: me, Jacob Filer, working out of Missouri. The person who scopes your project is the person who builds it — which is why there's only ever one assessment and one build in flight.

Every system described here I built myself and still keep running.