Clarity over cleverness
Code and tooling should be easy to read and understand — for the next person, and for yourself six months later.
< Use, Install & Support My Work />
Real, shipped tools you can install or license today — plus books and ways to support the open work. Everything here is built and maintained end to end.
⭐ Flagship · Open Source
🔶 LLM Workflow Router
A deterministic engine that stops AI workflows from silently breaking in production. YAML-driven, cycle-safe, with built-in tracing and an OpenAI Agents SDK integration.
Free · MIT · pip install llm-workflow-router
⬇️ Install & Use Free
📦 Packages & Add-ons
Published tools you can drop into your workflow right now.
📖 Buy a Book
📚 Books & Coloring Books
Original sci-fi and gentle, neurodivergent-friendly stories.
💛 Support my Work
✨ Feel Free to Follow Back or Contribute
Most of what I build is free and open. Support keeps it going.
< Featured Book />
📖 New Release
💻 IT Foundations with the Space Crew
A friendly, illustrated introduction to core IT concepts — taught alongside the Space Crew. Approachable, neurodivergent-friendly, and built to make the fundamentals actually click.
< Professional Endorsement />
"Doby has demonstrated strong technical skills, thoughtful system-level thinking, and a clear focus on usability and maintainability. He played a key role in developing innovative tooling driven by real user and community needs. He is proactive, reliable, and communicates clearly, particularly when working on complex or cross-cutting features."
– Mission Payload Senior Software Engineer, European Space Agency
< Control Systems, Scientific Software & Validation Engineering />
I'm a software engineer with 3+ years specializing in Python, developer tooling, scientific software, and AI infrastructure. I build reliable systems that reduce invalid states, improve observability, and make complex software easier to understand, maintain, and debug. I'm interested in backend engineering, developer platforms, scientific software, AI infrastructure, and open-source collaboration. I enjoy building tools that help other engineers work more effectively and make complex systems more predictable.
Python backend • Developer tooling • Open Source
Scientific software • AI infrastructure • Configuration validation
CI/CD • PyPI • GitLab • OpenTelemetry • Technical documentation
Roles I'm Pursuing
Software Engineer • Python Backend Engineer • Scientific Software Engineer • Developer Experience (DevEx) • AI Infrastructure Engineer • Open Source Engineer
Software Engineer • Python Backend Engineer • Scientific Software Engineer • Developer Experience (DevEx) • AI Infrastructure Engineer • Open Source Engineer
< Professional Profile />
Identity
Doby Baxter
He / Him
He / Him
| < Technical Competencies /> | |
|---|---|
| Programming | Python • TypeScript • JavaScript • Node.js • Bash |
| Backend & Developer Tooling | Git • GitLab CI/CD • Docker • PyPI • CLI Tooling • OpenTelemetry (Distributed Tracing, Metrics & Logs) |
| Validation & Architecture | JSON • YAML • JSON Schema Design • AJV Validation • Schema-Driven Architecture • Configuration Validation • Deterministic Workflows |
| Security & Systems | Input Validation • Secure Configuration • Network Analysis (Wireshark, Nmap) • Linux • System Inspection & Debugging |
| Documentation & Collaboration | Technical Writing • Architecture Documentation • Open Source Collaboration • Async Remote Communication |
| Scientific Software | Scientific Computing • Detector Simulation • Configuration Tooling • Developer Experience |
| Previous Engineering Experience (Retired) | Ignition SCADA (Perspective) • Siemens TIA Portal • CODESYS • Ladder Logic • Motor Control • PLC Simulation & Debugging | Engineering Experience |
|
< How I think about building />
A few principles I try to keep in mind when working on tooling, configuration, and developer-facing systems.
Catch problems early
Good configuration handling and clear error messages make it much easier to spot mistakes before they become bigger issues.
Predictable behavior
Tools that behave consistently are easier to trust, debug, and hand off to someone else.
Useful errors
When something goes wrong, the error should tell you what happened and ideally point you toward fixing it.
< Documentation & Case Studies />
Long-form technical writing — tutorials, comparisons, and architecture thinking behind the tools. Clear writing is part of how I build.
Python Tutorial
Validate Your LLM Workflow Before It Runs
A step-by-step guide to catching structural problems in an AI workflow — dead ends, invalid transitions, and non-terminating loops — at load time, before they reach production. Uses Python, YAML, and topology validation.
📄 Read on DEV.to →Platform Comparison
GitLab vs GitHub in 2026
An evenhanded comparison of the two platforms — integrated DevSecOps suite versus composable ecosystem — covering CI/CD, security scanning, project management, and how to choose based on how your team actually works.
📄 Read on DEV.to →Architecture Guide
Making Architecture Diagrams Tell the Truth
Why most system diagrams hide the risk — and how to draw trust boundaries, typed data flow, and data persistence so they're visible. Walks one system through three stages of scale to show how the risk surface grows.
📄 Read on DEV.to →< Featured Projects />
LLM Workflow Router
A deterministic workflow engine for modern AI applications that validates workflow topology before execution. Built to eliminate invalid states, provide predictable routing, and improve observability through OpenTelemetry, with support for YAML-defined workflows, CLI tooling, and seamless integration with the OpenAI Agents SDK.
▶ View Project
Pyxel Config Lab
A schema-aware YAML configuration system for ESA Pyxel simulation modes, designed to reduce misconfiguration risk in scientific workflows. Implements guided configuration flows, integrated validation, and contextual error handling to enforce structural correctness and improve usability in complex detector simulation environments.
▶ Visit
GitLab Systems Contributions
A technical portfolio of contributions across backend, frontend, and documentation within the GitLab ecosystem. Focused on validation, data integrity, and preventing invalid system states through safer parsing, input constraints, and improved API clarity in large-scale production systems.
▶ Visit
Multi-Scale Earth Observation
A full-stack geospatial application integrating a FastAPI backend with the Copernicus Sentinel Hub API for real-time Sentinel-2 imagery, NDVI computation, and statistical aggregation. Orbital mechanics are computed via Skyfield (SGP4 propagation) to contextualize satellite passes. The frontend uses CesiumJS to render an interactive 3D globe with toggleable data overlays. Render hosting the API.
▶ Visit
Open Telemetry and Second Order Cybernetics
An exploratory contribution site documenting my journey into OpenTelemetry - the open source standard for distributed observability - alongside the ideas that drew me to it. Frames observability as a second-order cybernetic practice, where engineers, users, and the systems they build all sit inside the same feedback loop. A working notebook for contributions, reflections, and the long-term question of what it means to make complex systems legible to the humans who depend on them.
▶ Visit< 🌐 Browse All Projects />
< LLM Workflow Router />
Reliable Infrastructure for AI Workflows
The LLM Workflow Router helps engineering teams build AI applications that are predictable, observable, and easier to operate in production. It validates workflow topology before execution, eliminates invalid routing paths, exposes explicit failure states, and integrates with OpenTelemetry for end-to-end visibility—reducing the risk of unexpected behaviour in complex AI systems.
Inspired by the Lumenoid AI Framework, the router focuses on structural safety rather than content moderation. Lumenoid helps applications make responsible AI decisions, while the LLM Workflow Router ensures those decisions flow through explicit, deterministic, and auditable workflows.
Free MIT-licensed Core • Optional Commercial Security Licensing
pip install llm-workflow-routerStart with the free MIT-licensed core. Upgrade to the Commercial Security Layer when you need trust-boundary enforcement, policy validation, tamper-evident auditing, and enterprise support.
Deterministic workflow execution
YAML-driven workflow configuration
Multiple explicit entrypoints
Strict topology validation before execution
Cycle detection and safe re-entry handling
Clear failure states and predictable behaviour
Optional stateful session layer
OpenAI Agents SDK integration
Mermaid / DOT topology export
OpenTelemetry observability
CLI tooling for validation and analysis
🛰️ Inspired by the Lumenoid AI Framework
Lumenoid is an open ethical AI architecture that defines reference principles for responsibility, transparency, uncertainty, bounded capability, and human-centred system design. Rather than prescribing model behaviour, it provides architectural foundations that help AI systems remain understandable, accountable, and safe to evolve.
🛡️ Licensing
The core LLM Workflow Router is free forever under the MIT License, including commercial use.
Organizations that need enterprise-grade trust boundaries,
policy enforcement, tamper-evident audit trails, and the
wfrouter.security.* telemetry convention can
license the optional Security Layer.
Commercial subscriptions include ongoing security updates, evolving policy packs, compatibility with OpenTelemetry GenAI conventions, and priority support.
💼 Commercial Security Licensing
The Security Layer is designed for organizations deploying AI systems in production where compliance, observability, and trust-boundary enforcement are business requirements.
Commercial Features
✔ Trust boundary enforcement
✔ Policy validation engine
✔ Tamper-evident audit trail
✔
wfrouter.security.* telemetry
✔ Continuous policy updates
✔ OpenTelemetry compatibility updates
✔ Priority support
✔ Commercial license
< Work With Me />
< My Soft Skills Journey />
A living constellation of personal growth – from empathy to confidence, advocacy to connection. Click or hover to expand the details for each milestone.
☀️ Solar Journey (Playable Demo)
Explore the Solar System in a pixel-art spaceship made in PICO-8!
< A Note on Perseverance />
- I am disabled and neurodivergent, and my path through education and work has been shaped far more by the absence of accommodation than by any lack of ability.
- I left university because the environment was not built for the way I learn and recover, and the same pattern followed into employment: burnout, health flare-ups, and inaccessible spaces made long-term stability hard, even when the technical work itself was never the problem.
- At one point, severe burnout left me unable to work for nearly two years. That experience reshaped how I think about systems, sustainability, and what meaningful support actually looks like.
- For eighteen months and counting, I have applied across nearly every route into tech — software, IT, automation, public sector, specialist disability employers, freelancing — and been met almost entirely with rejection, silence, or automated filters that close the door before a human ever sees the work.
- Every avenue turned out to be locked or empty. In freelancing I never became visible at all. Programs promised links to employers and had none. Platforms were saturated far past the point of entry. Even the support services meant to help kept hitting the same walls I did, rather than removing them.
- This is happening in one of the hardest markets software engineers have ever faced — entry-level hiring has collapsed, and disabled applicants are quietly screened out first. The barrier has rarely been my capability. It has been role structure, accommodation, and hiring channels that were never designed with people like me in mind.
- This is why I care so much about validation, maintainability, and developer experience. Clearer systems, better tooling, and predictable workflows are not just technical improvements — they are forms of accessibility. They reduce friction and make participation more possible.
- So I keep going on my own timeline. A rover on Mars does not stop because the terrain is hostile; being built for hostile ground is the whole point. It keeps moving, keeps gathering, keeps doing the work, whether or not anyone is watching. Through every closed door, I never stopped building.
- I have always been capable. I have not always been allowed to participate.
- Like that rover, arrival has never automatically created belonging. For me, belonging comes through curiosity, imagination, and building the structures that help people — including the ones the system was never designed for — move forward, together.
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