Zachary Gray

I've been building my own tools since 2015. The first one was a laptop in a cigar box.

The cigar box

The Zachintosh, in sixth grade.

In sixth grade I wasn't allowed a laptop. I was allowed a Raspberry Pi. So my dad got me the Pi, and I built the laptop out of an old cigar box from a thrift store, a 7-inch screen off Amazon, a mini keyboard and trackpad, and a battery from Best Buy, all held together with Velcro and zip ties. It worked. I took it to school like any other laptop. Having a computer I'd built myself felt like a milestone.

I still work the same way. If the tool I want doesn't exist, I build it, and AI is just an extension of that. It lets me reach more milestones at a faster rate and work on a lot more things in parallel, so the things I build have gotten bigger, like a personal computer spread across three machines, a window manager, and an app that builds other apps.

Grooves

I've found my groove. Six of them, actually.The things I keep coming back to, from the outer groove in.

  1. Customizing the machines

    If the computer doesn't fit, change the computer.

    • 2015The Zachintosh. A working laptop inside a cigar box.
    • 2026Amber Glass. A warm, frosted Omarchy theme.
    • 2026Prism. The last Omarchy theme manager you'll need.
    • 2026HyprMac. Keyboard-driven tiling windows for macOS.

  2. Learning & Teaching

    The fastest way I know to understand something is to explain it.

    • 2022Intro to CS TA. At Hendrix, one semester after taking the class.
    • 2026AIPP. An intro-to-AI course Oklahoma high schools teach now.
    • 2026AI and ML Club. Vice president at TU.
    • 2026NEPTR talk. How the agent I text works, for the club.

  3. Games & Apps

    Things other people can pick up and use.

    • 2023Apple Picker. My first Unity game.
    • 2023Shifty Shapes. An original sliding puzzle, on itch.io.
    • 202320 Minutes Till Sunrise. A team-built survival shooter.
    • 2024ChefMind. My first iOS app.
    • 2026Sidenote. Meetings, turned into project knowledge.
    • 2026SpendMe. Self-hosted budgeting that learns.
    • 2026Husk. Describe an app to Claude, get it on your iPhone.

  4. Music

    What's playing, what key it's in, and how to play it.

    • 2023AI Playlist Maker. From my earliest LLM days.
    • 2024Guitar tabs from a mic. Pure signal processing.
    • 2024Musical Key Detector. Names the key of whatever's on.
    • 2025Pi Spotify Lyrics. Album art spinning like vinyl.

  5. LLM Agents

    What happens when language models have to negotiate.

    • 2023LLM research. Started the spring of my sophomore year.
    • 2024Negotiation framework. Presented through TURC.
    • 2025AAMAS 2025. A workshop paper, in Detroit.
    • 2025Research platform. The framework, made multi-domain.
    • 2026LODA. Presented at NASA JPL.
    • 2026CORES. When do small models beat one big one?

  6. Agent Tools

    The newest groove. Places for agents to live, remember, and get work done.

    • 2025OllamaHelperModule. The wrapper I still reach for.
    • 2026Synapse. One brain, three machines.
    • 2026friday-llm. Local models for every machine I own.
    • 2026Rocky. The agent I text, first called NEPTR.
    • 2026Daybook. The morning brief Rocky sends me.

The paper trail

The same story, year by year.

  1. 2015

    Built the Zachintosh in sixth grade, a working laptop inside a cigar box.

  2. 2022

    Started teaching in January. TA'd Intro to CS at Hendrix College as a freshman, one semester after taking the class myself. Transferred to the University of Tulsa that fall.

  3. 2023

    Started LLM research in the spring of my sophomore year, and I've been an AI researcher at TU since that May. Became Scholarship Chair of my fraternity chapter that fall, and the house GPA rose half a point in one semester.

  4. 2024

    Built my first iOS app, ChefMind. Presented my LLM negotiation research through TURC, including to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon.

  5. 2025

    Graduated with a B.S. in CS, Magna Cum Laude, with minors in math and psychology. Presented a workshop paper at AAMAS 2025 in Detroit, spent the summer as a SOC engineer, and started my master's in CS that fall.

  6. 2026

    Presented LODA at NASA JPL in March. Two weeks later I started Loci, the first version of what became Synapse. Synapse, Husk, HyprMac, and Sidenote are in daily use. Co-founded Bonsai (joinbons.ai), software with AI tools for running an orthodontic practice. It's live at its first practice and open to early adopters. A small team at TU and I built an intro-to-AI course that Oklahoma high schools teach now. Vice president of TU's AI and ML Club since August. In September 2026 I gave the club a talk about NEPTR. Master's in CS expected May 2027.

In the room

Presenting the research at TURC, AAMAS and NASA JPL.

  • TURC, fall 2024. Presenting the negotiation research.
  • AAMAS 2025, Detroit, with the MASTERS group.
  • NASA JPL, March 2026, presenting LODA.
See the workOff the computer
Sit at the desk, in 3D(the 3D version)There's a 3D version of this site. It needs a bigger screen than this one.This browser can't run WebGL, so it stays flat.It moves a lot, and your system asked for less motion.