Originally posted on https://brookjeynes.dev/writings/2026/garage-door
Okay, maybe not always. Depending on the culture of the neighbourhood you live in, you may have found yourself walking down the street and seeing a neighbour working on something. Whether that be in their backyard, on their driveway, or within their garage with the door wide open. As I walk by I can't help but find myself intrigued by the type of hobby project they may be working on. I get this brief window view into the way they work, what they like, how they organise themselves. I now understand and know them that tiny bit better and maybe next time I walk by and see their garage door open, I may start up a conversation.
I recently stumbled across likes.fyi, an "experimental toolkit for sharing the things you like with the people you know". What stood out to me was how open the creator was within their devlogs. It was like I plugged directly into the creators stream of consciousness. It was simple. It was rough. It was exactly what got me hooked onto the projects development.
I'm no saint myself. I'll often find myself working on a project or feature for weeks on end without sharing any progress. Thinking back, I know this has only harmed my work. Not only do products and features end up worse because of a lack of any feedback. I also tend to forget why certain decisions were made. Why did I choose service x over y. What was the reason for feature d when it has nothing to do with feature a or b.
I think AI could be attributed, in part, to why people are being protective about their ideas. With huge amounts of code being generated by AI, people are worried that their ideas are no longer safe to share. Why should I share what I'm working on when a stranger on the internet without a token budget could generate my idea in an afternoon. I hate this mindset. While vibe-coding has lead to many variations of the same idea being generated. All these clones lack one important thing - heart. Their user-base can feel it. The idea never mattered to them, all that did was profit. Working in the open shows your passion. It shows you care about the craft. I believe this way of working fosters a community of like-minded people. People who want to actively contribute and provide feedback to your projects. The benefits of this approach out-way any negatives that could come from it.
People who want to see your thoughts will follow along, happy to be involved in the process. Those who do not, will leave. They're not the ones you want to be building for anyway. So heed this post as my pledge to work with my garage door open. If you're interested in seeing the things I work on, you can find me over on bluesky.
This post was inspired by Andy Matuschak's post "Work with the garage door open".