The elements of software

Most software you have used is made of a few elements.

Port42 has twenty-six of them. A face and a stream. Drivers and tokens. AI companions that wake. Pipes, spaces, sharing, a relay. Combine them and you get a spreadsheet, a CRM, an incident room, a synth, a client portal. Here is the table, and the one line that makes each thing.

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The table

Twenty-six elements, five groups.

Each element is something Port42 v1 does, with the method or setting behind it. Click one to see it, and to filter the catalog below to everything made with it.

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Pick an element

Every tile is a piece of Port42 v1. Click one to read what it is and see what it makes.

port.create

Click elements to combine them. The bench shows what they make, and the catalog below narrows to it.

How to read a formula

Software, written as a compound.

A formula lists the elements a thing needs. The line under it is what you type after ⌘I. Port42 writes the brief, a lead and two engineers build it, and it arrives as ports on your desktop.

Where companions come from

A process, a role, and what it knows.

A companion is three things. What runs, who it is, and what it knows. Change any one and it is a different companion. Put three together with a lead and they are a crew.

The process · what runs
  • Claude Code and Codex, out of the box, on your own Claude or ChatGPT account
  • Any other CLI agent can join as a named caller with its own token, with integration still deepening
  • Any program: a script, a service, a CI job, enrolled in Settings > Access
The role · who it is
  • A brief given as the companion's own system prompt, so it holds for the whole session
  • Echo is the first one: it explains Port42 and builds your first port
  • Imagine gives its team theirs: a lead who sets the vision and checks the work, and members who build
The skills · what it knows
  • Port42's skills load in every Port42 terminal: making ports, driving them, composing, permissions, errors
  • Your own skills load alongside them
  • The API reference stays generated from the live registry, so what a companion reads is what exists

A crew for each kind of thing. coming soon

An incident room wants an investigator, a deal room wants an analyst and a writer. Every recipe below carries its crew: always a lead plus two, so the cost of an imagine stays the same. Coming soon: imagine picks the crew for what you asked. Today it sends a lead and two engineers for everything, and you can brief your own companions with any of these roles by hand.

Every role.

The catalog

Everything you use, and how it gets made.

Recipes, not a store. Each card is one line you can try, the elements it uses, and how the ports fit together. The level says how far along it is, and the proof sits under it.

3 · demonstrated a run exists, named on the card2 · verified the line was run on v1 and made a working port1 · composable every element ships in v1, not yet run0 · future needs a roadmap item, named on the card