About

I'm Robert Allen (zircote), a technologist building AI-powered developer tools and precision agriculture systems.

What I Build

• AI Developer Tools: Claude Code plugins, semantic memory systems, and workflow automation
• API Tooling: OpenAPI/Swagger specifications and documentation generators
• Agriculture Tech: Precision farming tools, climate simulation, and livestock management systems
• Electrical Engineering: Circuit design, embedded systems, and sensor integration for farm automation
• Open Source: Maintaining projects used by thousands of developers worldwide

Beyond Tech

When I'm not writing code, you'll find me:

• Making music: Cellist and bassist
• In the workshop: Woodworking and building things with my hands
• Reading and thinking: Aspiring philosopher with deep interests in ontology and semantics
• Down rabbit holes: Currently fascinated by plasma physics

Open Specifications

• MIF (GitHub): Memory Interchange Format. An open specification for how AI assistants store, exchange, and reason about persistent memory. Dual-format design works in Obsidian and machines alike.
• ccpkg (GitHub): An open packaging format for AI coding assistant extensions. Self-contained archives that work across Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, and Copilot.
• Structured MADR (GitHub): Machine-readable Architecture Decision Records. YAML frontmatter, JSON Schema validation, and compliance tracking for ADRs that tooling can actually parse.

Open Source

• swagger-php: PHP library for generating OpenAPI documentation from annotations, used by thousands of projects worldwide
• git-adr: Architecture Decision Records stored in git notes with AI-powered drafting
• subcog: Git-native semantic memory with hybrid BM25/vector search for Claude Code
• mnemonic: Filesystem-based persistent memory for Claude Code with ontology-driven namespaces and automatic recall
• nsip: Rust CLI and MCP server for NSIP sheep genetic evaluations

Epic Pastures

Epic Pastures is my regenerative farm in Central Virginia, raising Katahdin hair sheep, poultry, and running high-tunnel vegetable production. The farm drives my agricultural technology work, building tools to solve real problems I encounter daily:

• nsip: Rust CLI and MCP server for NSIP genetic evaluations, replacing the earlier Python client
• nsip-api-client: Original Python client and MCP server for the NSIP genetic database
• nsip-example: Epic Pastures demo farm with digital records, NSIP breeding integration, and EOV ecological monitoring
• cloudgrow-sim: ASHRAE-compliant greenhouse climate simulation for optimizing growing conditions

Connect

Find me on GitHub where I'm actively contributing to the open source community.