# Malleable Software Malleable software is software that users can reshape to fit their own needs with minimal friction, at the point of use, instead of waiting for a distant vendor or engineering team to change it. Adaptation ranges from small tweaks to deep renovations, to creating new tools that work well alongside existing ones. It doesn't imply starting from scratch. The term was popularized by the Ink & Switch essay "Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps" (June 2025, Geoffrey Litt, Josh Horowitz, Peter van Hardenberg, Todd Matthews). Its framing: "The original promise of personal computing was a new kind of clay. Instead, we got appliances: built far away, sealed, unchangeable." ## Core ideas - **Appliances vs clay**: most apps are sealed products. Users adapt to them, not the other way around - **Craft analogy**: a guitar maker arranges their workshop and builds small jigs as needed. The physical world is naturally malleable; most software isn't, or requires deep programming skills to change - **Gentle slope**: customization should be possible in small steps, not only by rewriting code - **Composable tools and shared data**: tools should work together on data the user controls, rather than locking it inside each app - **AI alone isn't enough**: AI coding lowers the cost of changing software, but the "application" model (sealed, siloed apps) stays a barrier. Platforms must be designed to be modified - **Lineage**: builds on ideas from HyperCard, Smalltalk, Dynamicland, and Ink & Switch prototypes (Patchwork, Embark, Potluck) ## My take - [[Obsidian]] is one of the best examples of malleable software available today. It embeds a full web browser (via [[Electron]]), exposes a plugin system that can change almost anything, and keeps data in plain Markdown files. I see it as an operating system for Markdown - AI agents + a malleable platform where your data already lives is far more sustainable than a pile of standalone vibe coded apps - For non-developers, extending a malleable platform (templates, plugins, [[AI Agent Skills]]) is the safest entry point into [[Software for One]]: tools shaped around your work without having to host, secure, and maintain a whole application - [[Andy Matuschak]] explored the same direction in a 2026 talk on apps becoming platforms that programmers and non-programmers can modify ## References - https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software/ - https://www.inkandswitch.com/malleable-software/ - https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/11/malleable-software/ - https://andymatuschak.org/tat/ ## Related - [[Software for One]] - [[Build Software for an Audience of One (Article)]] - [[Obsidian]] - [[Local-First Software]] - [[File over app principle]] - [[AI Agent Skills]] - [[Vibe Coding]] - [[Andy Matuschak]]