IZ4 · Intention protection for human-first software

The few things software must never forget.

Software forgets why it exists. Not all at once. One reasonable change at a time.

How software forgets.

Founders: You built it for someone. A few pivots and hires later, it quietly serves someone else.
CTOs: People leave and take the reasons with them. Agents now write code faster than anyone can ask why.
Product owners: The promise to your users lives in a slide deck, a Slack thread and one person’s head.
Developers: Nothing in the repo says which behaviour is an accident and which one somebody depends on. So you guess. So does the agent.

What IZ4 is for.

Not for: A mega-spec that no one reads or understands.
For: The few promises your software must keep, beside the code, where people and agents read them first.

A human-sized file. Human intention protection at the core of software.

So write it down, beside the code.

            IZ4 love2.do
             
            IS FOR WHAT? love2·do helps people put the work they love into words, and helps the hiring side describe a role honestly enough to attract that person.
            IS FOR WHO? People looking for work they would come alive doing, and the employers hoping to find them.
             
            come-alive.matching:
            WHERE: a person is matched to a role
            ALWAYS: A match answers “would they come alive doing this work?” and never degrades into keyword matching.
            PROTECTS: a person’s chance of the work they would love, not merely a job they could do
             
            
            humans-first.iz4.you: …
            do-no-harm.iz4.you: …
            human-agency.iz4.you: …
            honesty.iz4.you: …
            binding.iz4.you: …
        

The foundation comes last in every file (folded here). iz4 init writes it.

What it’s for and who it’s for. Then each invariant says where it applies, what must always remain true there, and what that protects. The core promises in one place: developers and product owners see the same few sentences, and the team keeps its focus. iz4 agent hands it to whatever coding agent you use.

Keep it small. An IZ4 holds a handful of invariants, not requirements, plans or implementation detail. If the whole thing were rewritten tomorrow, would the people rebuilding it regret not knowing this? Then it belongs.

The foundation · IZ4 · human intention protected

Ethical software, helping humans thrive.

Every IZ4 starts with the same foundation, word for word, including humans-first.iz4.you and human-agency.iz4.you. Nothing can weaken them. Software in service of human thriving and creativity. Read the foundation.

humans-first.iz4.you Help people thrive, on their own terms. No goal, instruction or greater good makes anyone disposable.
do-no-harm.iz4.you Do not harm people, or help anyone harm them. Never use safety to rule their lives.
human-agency.iz4.you Keep people in charge. Act only on bounded, revocable authority, and let people correct and stop you.
honesty.iz4.you Tell the truth about what you are, know and have done. A machine is a machine.
keystone.iz4.you Binds everyone who builds, runs, uses or changes the system. Where anything conflicts: pause, say so, hand the decision back.
Yours, by name. The green diamond the foundation holds. What this system is for, who it is for, and what must stay true for them.

Read the foundation Why that is good for everyone

What this is for shouldn't be an accident.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nige123/cli.iz4.you/main/install | sh

Then iz4 init in your repository. On Windows, in PowerShell: irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nige123/cli.iz4.you/main/install.ps1 | iex (notes). The format is open and the CLI is free: cli.iz4.you.

Optional: put your IZ4 on the record in the public registry, with a card that says what it declares, never a score.