Primd

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HTMX AlpineJS Tailwind PHP Redis Memgraph PostgreSQL Kafka LLMs

Introduction

Primd was founded April of 2025 as a worker-owned cooperative aimed at re-imagining how we, as a society, find and fill jobs. Our work focuses on building skills-first and skills-only tools to enable workers and employers to find shared opportunities through alternative hiring and training pathways.

Using a hybrid startup model combining aspects of non-profit, for-profit and open-source organizations, Primd is bootstrapped by the members who own it. Time commitments are fully flexible, enabling members to contribute in accordance with other full-time or part-time work for long-term time-proportional equity.

My Role

Operations infrastructure, accounting, and contracts.
Product architecture (software and systems design).
Back-end and front-end application code and implementation.

Comprehensive Collaboration Tools

As a 100% bootstrapped initiative, keeping the costs of collaboration low was a significant concern. Employing my experience with system administration and knowledge of open source alternatives enabled Primd's internal infrastrucutre to operate at cost of ~$100 annually for the first 2 years. We use:

Nextcloud as an essential groupware entrypoint (shared files, chat, and video conferencing)
OnlyOffice to edit and collaborate on documents online.
Authentik for centralized single sign-on authentication to the above, as well as ListMonk (e-mail marketing), Kimai (time tracking), and Freescout (support systems), and more!

Looking for your own cost-effective solutions for internal operations? Contact me!

services:
  onlyoffice:
    image: docker.io/onlyoffice/documentserver:latest
    container_name: onlyoffice
    restart: unless-stopped
    env_file:
      - path: ./.env
        required: true
    volumes:
      - ./data:/var/www/onlyoffice/Data
      - ./fonts:/usr/share/fonts
    networks:
      - default
    ports:
      - "8040:80"

networks:
  default:
    name: primd
    external: true

Open Source Code

Graph database representation

Primd isn't just experimenting with a skills-first approach, we're also trying new technologies. We chose Memgraph as a performance-focused alternative to the more common Neo4j, unfortunately, integration options were limited. Enter FluidGraph, our first open source library and a completely novel approach to stateful entity managers.

Visit the FluidGraph Repository

A No-Build Progressive Web App (PWA)

Why a no-build PWA? Progressive Web Apps encapsulate the promise and simplicity of the modern web which, somewhat ironically, started to abandon this promise with the rise of large front-end frameworks like React. We want to try and keep that spirit alive. Accordingly, Primd is consciously and unapologetically built around technologies that aim to preserve the transparency and accessibility of Hypermedia.

That doesn't mean we forego the benefits of modern web-app development. Using a combination of server-side components, HTMX, AlpineJS, and Tailwind we create re-usable patterns that improve developer experience and keep things consistent.

Here's an example of what our code looks like:

<x:live>
    <x:form-range
        name="confidence"
        label="What is your confidence in their ability?"
        scale={% v: {
            1: 'low',
            5: 'high'
        } %}
    />
</x:live>

Screenshot of the Primd PWA