From know-how
to done.
Howware is your know-how, put to work by AI. You state the rules in your own words; an AI agent follows them, with a few exact tools and a memory you own.
› Yesterday I spent 180 on lunch, in cash. ✓ Recorded, with your words as evidence. › OXXO is groceries, not convenience. ✓ New rule, applied to your whole history. › How am I doing with my grocery budget? $3,180.40 of $4,000.00 (79 %). $819.60 left for 9 days.
The handoff problem
The person who knows how something should work is almost never the person who builds it. Meaning gets lost in translation, every rule makes the code more complicated, and every change waits its turn.
Today
And around the rules, an app — screens, forms, a backend — that everyone has to learn.
With howware
Code only for what must be exact — reading documents, money, dates, storage — in small tools that rarely change.
The next step after the spreadsheet
The spreadsheet was the first time people who don't program could put their own know-how to work without asking anyone. Howware takes the same idea further.
| Spreadsheet | Howware | |
|---|---|---|
| Rules are written as | Formulas | Your own words |
| The interface is | A grid | A conversation |
| Data gets in by | Typing or pasting | Tools that read your documents |
| Who does the work | You, cell by cell | An AI agent, following your rules |
| A change takes effect | When you type it | In the next conversation |
What a howware is made of
Four parts. The agent that runs it — Claude Code, Codex or another — is not one of them, just as the browser is not part of a web page.
Protocol
Your know-how in plain words: steps, criteria, rules, what to ask, what never to do. You can read it and change it.
Tools
Small programs for whatever must be exact: reading documents, money in cents, dates, identifiers, storage.
Memory
Your data and the rules you teach, in a place you own, with history. Nothing is silently overwritten.
Conversation
The only interface. You say what you need; the agent asks when something is unclear.
Nine principles
From the manifesto.
- The person with the know-how is the author.No translation to a developer, no queue.
- The conversation is the interface.No screens to build, no menus to learn.
- Code only what must be exact.Judgment lives in words; exactness lives in tested tools.
- The agent decides; the tools do the work.It never transcribes records or does the arithmetic.
- The person approves.The agent proposes; nothing outward-facing without an explicit request.
- The person owns the data.Readable, portable, with history.
- Privacy by design, stated honestly.Minimize what reaches the model; say what you can't guarantee.
- Small enough to audit.A text file and a few short tools anyone can read.
- Composable and open.Open pieces, each useful alone — not a sealed product.
Honest limits
- There is still code — less, and only where exactness matters.
- Words are less precise than formulas, so the agent proposes, you approve, and exact operations live in tested tools.
- What the agent sees leaves your computer for your AI provider. Every howware states what stays local, what the agent sees and what it cannot guarantee.
When not to use it
- Visual or spatial work: design, maps, video, games.
- Real-time or high-frequency work: trading, live dashboards, point of sale.
- When a button's milliseconds matter more than flexibility.
- Jobs with no judgment in them — a script or a spreadsheet may be simpler.
The test: if you removed the screens from the app you have in mind, would most of its value remain?
Build a howware
Two skills for Claude Code and Codex: one builds a howware with you, the other reviews it against the specification.
1 · Install the skills
git clone https://github.com/proteo5/howware python howware/tools/install_skills.py
2 · Install the memory
git clone https://github.com/proteo5/long-term-memory-for-AI python long-term-memory-for-AI/tools/install_skill.py \ --target ~/.claude/skills/project-memory
3 · Tell your agent
I want to turn the way I <do something> into a howware.
The first howware
finanzas-personales
Personal finances with no app: bank statements read and anonymized on your computer, categories that learn as rules, cash in a sentence, budgets with history, card payment reminders, monthly close.
Read more
- Manifesto — the definition and nine principles.
- Whitepaper — patterns, anti-patterns, privacy, limits, comparison.
- Specification — what a howware must have, and a conformance checklist.
- Template — a working howware skeleton.
Where it goes next
Explored in the open, with the same principles.
Personal
One person, one machine, one memory. Personal finance is the first howware.
Teams
Shared memory, roles, approvals and audit: who may change which rules, and who said what.
Enterprise
Identity, permissions, compliance, signed protocol packages and evaluation across model versions.
Hardware runs it. Software executes it. Howware knows how.