Stacks & Vera

Which evidence, which synthesis, which assumption. In practice, that lineage disappears within weeks. Stacks and VERA are tools I designed and built to solve that problem: one tracks how evidence connects to artifacts, the other generates structured deliverables from evidence logs with built-in confidence scoring.

Stacks — The Lineage Layer

Stacks is a spatial canvas built on tldraw that treats research and strategy work as a system with explicit lineage. Sources, synthesis, assumptions, and design artifacts are placed on the canvas and connected directionally — so you can trace from a raw interview quote through synthesis to the specific screen or decision it informed. When an upstream source changes, Stacks surfaces which downstream artifacts may need review. The interaction model is intentionally calm: things arrive slowly, hover states reveal connections without overwhelming the view, and every element is inspectable.

VERA — The Generation Layer

VERA (Validated Evidence, Ready Artifacts) is a CLI-based AI agent that generates structured discovery deliverables from evidence logs. It reads the evidence you've collected, generates artifacts like journey maps, problem statements, or synthesis documents, and tags each output with a confidence score based on how much supporting evidence exists. The human reviews, validates, or rejects — the AI does the assembly work, the human retains judgment. VERA runs in production and integrates with Stacks through an API layer, so generated artifacts inherit the lineage of their source evidence.

Why This Matters Beyond Design

The problems Stacks and VERA solve — upstream change propagation, confidence in derived outputs, human oversight of automated generation — are the same challenges data platforms face with pipeline lineage, schema evolution, and AI-assisted analytics. I built these tools because the problem is personal to how I work. That they mirror the challenges of data infrastructure is why this project keeps sharpening my thinking on the exact systems I want to design professionally.