CaprockWorks · Tools
Real tools for real problems.
Small, self-hosted software that does one specific job well. Every tool has a free tier you own outright and keep for good, whether you ever pay or not.
What this is
Real tools for real problems. Priced plainly.
Each tool here does one specific job well — not a platform, not a roadmap, not a pitch. Software that works, priced plainly, with a free tier that's yours to keep whether you ever pay or not. No funding round, no upsell ladder, no expiring trial.
- Source
- Open — MIT/Apache
- Free tier
- Every one
- Hosting
- Yours — self-hosted
- Lock-in
- None
The tools
The tools.
Each links to its own page — what it does, what it deliberately does not, and what it costs.
Knowledge · MCP
Knowledge‑Engine
A self-hosted knowledge engine: full-text and semantic search over your own markdown, an MCP server so Claude or Cursor can query it directly, and a curated three-library reference corpus in the box.
View Knowledge-EngineBrowser automation
Pilot Pack
A permission-first operating model for giving an AI coding agent real browser-automation skill — deliberate, supervised, and hard to send off the rails. Free starter, paid pattern toolkit.
View Pilot PackFire & EMS training
AAR Scene Builder
Draw a structure fast on a 2D sketch; a projector pane shows the corrected 3D after-action scene in real time. Drop in trucks, hose lines, victims, search areas. Built for fire-training officers.
View AAR Scene BuilderRecords & correspondence
Paperline
A self-hosted pipeline that turns scattered email and documents into a hash-verified, full-text-searchable archive — with a timeline, version diffs, and an audit log. For long investigations.
View PaperlineMarket data · backtesting
candlefetch
Pick a symbol and a date range, click once: clean, interval-correct OHLCV candle data from Binance US and Yahoo Finance, as CSVs and a live chart. No API key, no scraper to write.
View candlefetchCorrespondence intelligence
ThreadTrace
An open pipeline that turns a two-party email or message history into a structure — a timeline of state changes, an issue map, a sentiment trajectory. Built to fork and specialize for your domain.
View ThreadTraceAgent workspace
Agent Workspace Kit
A filesystem-first workspace structure that Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, and Gemini all read the same way. Your agent learns the project state in one session, not twenty minutes.
View Agent Workspace KitVision-LLM · structured extraction
Screen Pipeline
The data is on a screen and the screen has no API. A vision-LLM reads the screen on a schedule, validates against your JSON schema, and emits structured state. Self-hosted, BYOK, layout-resilient.
View Screen PipelinePower monitoring · homelab + workstation
PowerMesh
Know what your homelab actually costs to run. Samples nvidia-smi, RAPL, TDP estimates, and smart plugs; models PSU efficiency; stores in SQLite; serves a local dashboard. One machine or a whole mesh. No cloud account, no agent fees.
View PowerMeshAI-work improvement loop
Fertilizer Loop
Turn each day of AI-assisted work into a reviewable improvement report — without sending raw private logs to a cloud system. Local-first, privacy-by-construction, Light mode safe for demos. The fruit of every working day becomes the fertilizer for tomorrow.
View Fertilizer LoopRF propagation · terrain-aware
RF Mapper
Offline desktop app for terrain-aware RF propagation analysis. DEM ingest, MiDaS depth inference, free-space + vegetation + water + diffraction loss, multi-transmitter aggregation, GeoTIFF + GeoJSON export. Tkinter GUI + CLI batch runner.
View RF MapperEach tool above is finished enough for someone else to run. A few more are still on the workbench.
How it works
Same shape, every tool.
However a tool is licensed or priced, three things hold true across all of them.
A free tier you own
Every tool ships a free tier as a public template you can clone. No account, no trial clock, no expiry. Clone it and it is yours.
Paid tier is the batteries
Where a paid tier exists it is a one-time price for the fuller version, bought through Polar.sh — which settles the sales tax. No subscription to forget about.
Self-hosted, no lock-in
Everything runs on your own machine. Nothing phones home. Stop paying and nothing switches off — you keep what you already have.
Start with a free tier.
Every tool has one. Pick the problem that sounds like yours and clone it — paying is a later decision, not an entry fee.
Release notes when something new ships.
One or two emails a month at most. Unsubscribe in one click.