Augmented Workflows — Mark Smalley

The Numbers

16 Days, One Ecosystem

In May 2026, I built Moddable Games from zero to production: a complete open-source games studio with two game engines, 37 game families, 41 AI-callable MCP tools, Consumer SDKs, and a 2,974-page rulebook pipeline. 535 commits across 10+ repositories in the initial 16-day sprint, all of which can be audited, forked or downloaded from GitHub. Read the full story.

535

Commits shipped

Chess variants

MCP tools

Hexmap games

2,974

Rulebook pages

169

JS modules

How It Works

The Workflow

Architecture First

Every project starts with plugin architecture, data separation, and API-readiness. I design for composition, not for the first feature, but for the 71st. The chess engine's registerVariant() pattern means adding variant #72 takes minutes, not hours.

AI as Force Multiplier

AI handles the volume work: generating variant implementations, producing documentation, writing test coverage. I handle the architecture, the judgment calls, and the quality bar. The ratio is roughly: I design the system once, then ship 71 variants through it.

Cross-Project Consistency

Global rules propagate across all repos automatically. Cache busting, link behaviour, CSS architecture, data patterns, versioning: solved once, enforced everywhere. Changes in one project trigger audits across siblings.

Visual Verification Loop

Every PDF page is rendered and inspected. Every CSS change is screenshot-verified. Every embed is tested across contexts. Nothing ships without visual sign-off. I iterate until every page passes.

Ship Continuously

No staging branches, no sprint ceremonies, no deployment pipelines. Push to main, GitHub Pages deploys, version bumps bust caches. The entire ecosystem deploys in seconds. 535 commits in 16 days means shipping roughly every 40 minutes, including three days spent camping in the Yorkshire Dales, deploying over 3G.

Autonomous Pipeline

Issues aren't a backlog. They're a typed queue. A structured pipeline across six repositories uses labels to route work through research and implementation agents running on cloud infrastructure — no terminal open, no machine running. Research agents investigate and scope. Implementation agents branch, build, and merge. I review the diff. The system processes work without being told to look.

Philosophy

Principles That Scale

No Frameworks

Vanilla JS, zero build step, zero dependencies. Every project runs on any static server. The constraint forces clean architecture rather than hiding complexity behind abstractions.

Data Drives Everything

Content lives in JSON. Pages are templates that consume data. Adding a new game, variant, or article means adding a JSON entry, not touching markup, styles, or deployment.

Plugin Over Config

Extension via composition, not configuration. The chess engine doesn't have a "variant config schema"; it has hooks. Variants compose behaviours. The system grows without the core changing.

Progressive API-Readiness

Every project shapes its data like API responses from day one. When it's time to add a real backend, the swap is a URL change, not a rewrite. Already proven across 6 repos.

Solve at Source

Don't patch symptoms. If bullet alignment is broken, fix the CSS shape, not per-element overrides. If data is inconsistent, fix the single source of truth, not the downstream copies.

Auditable by Default

Public repos. Semantic commits. Version-stamped deployments. Every claim on this page can be verified by reading the git history. Transparency is a feature, not a vulnerability.

Try It

Live Engine Demos

Both engines are embeddable anywhere with a single iframe and URL parameters. These are live. Play a game or generate a map right here.

Chess engine: switch variants above

Hexmap engine: switch games and styles above