About Little Bear Apps
An indie dev studio building focused tools for developers.
Little Bear Apps is an indie dev studio building focused tools for developers. One person, solving real problems, one tool at a time.
The name comes from Normi — my 13-year-old dog, a staffy-pug-French bulldog mix. He's the original little bear, and he's been with me through all of it. The daily walks with him are where most of the thinking happens.
Philosophy
Built for real use
Nothing here started as a product idea. Every tool began as something I needed in my own work — a frustration I hit, a gap I wanted to fill.
By the time something goes public, it's already been running in my workflows for months, sometimes longer. I've fixed the bugs that annoyed me, added the features I needed, and refined it through actual use.
What you see is the expanded version — adapted for broader use cases, documented properly, released because I think others might find it useful too.
Systems-first thinking
I come from a background in business operations, sales, marketing, and process design. That shapes how I build.
Tools aren't standalone things — they fit into workflows. They solve specific problems within a larger context. Documentation isn't an afterthought. Clarity is the goal.
If something's confusing or poorly explained, that's a bug.
Privacy and transparency
'Privacy-first' gets thrown around a lot. Here's what it actually means at Little Bear Apps:
Most tools are fully local — nothing phones home, nothing gets tracked, nothing gets stored on my end. Your data stays on your machine.
When a tool does collect data — for crash reports, analytics, or account features — I'll tell you exactly what, why, and where. No surprises, no buried disclosures.
I also acknowledge what I can't control. If you download from PyPI or npm, those registries see stats. If you open a GitHub issue, GitHub has that data. I can't change that, but I can be upfront about it.
Every tool page has transparency indicators so you always know where you stand.
The Badge System
Every tool on this site has badges indicating its maturity and privacy status. Here's what they mean.
Maturity Badges
Tested before release. Works for intended purpose. May have bugs or rough edges. Baseline for any public release.
Running in my own workflows for 6-12+ months. Core functionality is stable. Still evolving, but solid for real work.
Real users beyond me. Bugs surfaced and addressed. Features added from community feedback. Earned, not claimed.
Every tool starts at 'QA Tested.' The higher tiers are earned through real use — mine first, then the community's.
Privacy Badges
No data leaves your machine. LBA sees nothing. Third parties (registries, GitHub) see only download stats and repo activity.
Some anonymised data collected (specified what). No PII. Purpose disclosed.
Requires account or cloud features. What's stored, why, and where is fully disclosed.