James Shields: Developer
Richmond developer offering website builds and repairs, applications, SQL and database work, and automation. The interactive riverfront needs JavaScript.
Websites & Client Work
- Managed Website Platform (In progress): One platform for hand-coded local business sites that owners can safely edit
- The Workshop (In progress): This site: a Richmond riverfront row you can drive through, one building per kind of work
- Spinebound Books storefront (Live): A Shopify bookstore where reading guides lead and the shop follows
- Faraway & Found (In progress): Custom site for a travel photographer and writer: sets, stories, shop and bookings
- Local Commerce Blueprint (In progress): Reusable storefront and owner desk template for independent local shops
- Aspire Web Works (In progress): One-page site for a Richmond website refresh service for local businesses
- Vitrine & Vine (Concept): Store concept for kits that turn glass display cabinets into plant greenhouses
- Hollow Harbor Press website (Concept): Planned publisher site for Hollow Harbor Press, James's independent press
Code & Apps
- Dr. Plant (In progress): Plant care companion with care schedules, AI diagnosis and a 447-species catalog
- PermitLane (In progress): Multi-tenant permit operations platform for contractors, from lead to closeout
- PC Builder (In progress): Custom PC storefront and fulfillment workspace with part compatibility checks
- Lumen (In progress): A philosophy reading and study app built around read, reflect, discuss, revisit
- Story Builder (In progress): Local-first production console that turns a picture-book plan into a print-ready export
- GymBuddy (In progress): Full-stack fitness tracker for workouts, personal records, progress and health sync
- Alpaca Health (In progress): Multi-tenant Rails SaaS for running repeatable AI workflows as a team
- KDP Launch Assistant (In progress): Rails app that takes an author from manuscript to a launch-ready book
- Northstar (In progress): Local-first command center for projects, AI conversations and GitHub activity
- LocalPulse (Prototype): Lead command center for local home-service businesses
- EOD Growth Engine (In progress): Safety-first research system for human-approved end-of-day ETF portfolio proposals
Writing
- The Sons of Isaac (In progress): A literary horror duology about a father who will not let his son go
- The Lag (In progress): Horror novella: the security cameras still show her dead mother, two months behind
- The Chronicles of Catterton (In progress): Illustrated picture books where house cats secretly live as Regency nobility
- The Fountain of Truth (In progress): Historical confessional horror told by the sole survivor of a doomed expedition
- The Rift at Staghollow (In progress): Military fantasy where a squad holds back rift monsters with drums, breath and cadence
- Shattered Realms: The Weaver's Lament (In progress): Epic fantasy about a village skeptic who finds the magic she refused to believe in
- The Borderlands Crown (Concept): Character-first, low-magic political fantasy, now in prewriting
- The Everroot Cycle (Concept): A shared-universe canon bible that ties several planned fantasy series together
Games
- Winter Quarters (Playable): A soldier's career in the Thirty Years' War, where the goal is to get out alive
- Corner Kings (Playable): A boxing manager where you run the corner and two autonomous fighters settle it in 3D
- The Gate and the Falling Stars (Playable): A tower defense for phone and PC in Unreal 5.5, defended by a grumpy talking gate
- The Dark Horde (Playable): Horde defense with physical crowds of up to 14,000 attackers and three seals to hold
- SwarmRTS (Playable): Grand-tactical Civil War battles: 80 brigades and 160,000 men on the field at once
- Gladiator Manager (Playable): Run a failing gladiator school and coach its fighters through brutal arena bouts
- Gravity Garden: Fleet Command (Playable): A browser space RTS: capture relays, build a mixed fleet, destroy the enemy command ship
- Bulwark (Prototype): Physics-driven horde defense where you win by moving the mass, not by damage alone
- Crownfall (Prototype): A medieval melee prototype with server-authoritative swordplay from 1v1 to 64v64
- CombatHouse (Prototype): Manage a combat house and prepare fighters for tactical bouts the AI plays out
- Lair Builder (In progress): A browser strategy game: dig a lair, hire minions, run schemes, fend off agents
- War of Generals (In progress): A WW1 steampunk tactical RTS with a strategic territory layer, in early C++
- Standing Orders (Concept): Design for a province-map war game whose drawn-plan battles persist across turns
- Singing Cats Rhythm Game (Concept): A mobile rhythm game where every note you hit is a cat singing it
- Ashen Crown (Concept): Design research for a Bronze Age dynasty game played from inside the world
Automation & AI
- AI Operating Model (In progress): Eleven AI roles run a small business's weekly production, with the owner as sole approver
- Shorts Factory (One Weird History Fact) (Prototype): An n8n pipeline that turns a history topic into a finished, captioned vertical video
- Recap Pipeline (In progress): A local command center that builds narrated film recap episodes from a beat script
- Deal Content Factory (In progress): Semi-automated affiliate deal publishing where every judgment call stays human
- VentureLoop (In progress): A local, owner-gated agent workflow that researches websites and drafts audit reports
- Revenue Recovery Desk (Prototype): Turns an inbound service call into a qualified booking, then runs the follow-up
- Two Second Hook (Concept): A planned service for short AI video ads built from a store's own product page
Own ventures
- Spinebound Books: An independent online bookshop built around curated reading guides
- Hollow Harbor Press: James's independent publishing company for literary horror and speculative fiction
About
James Shields is a software and application developer in Richmond, Virginia, working across websites, applications, SQL and databases, and automation.
