Reading up on Basecamp

This morning we launched an updated My Bar in Basecamp 5. Now everything's instantly within reach no matter where you are, full-size, full screen. We also added "My Activity" so you can quickly see what you've been up to, easily get back to something you did recently, jump back to a thread you've been involved with, or review your work whenever someone asks "What have you been working on lately?". Super nice, super fast, super efficient. Have at it!

@jasonfried

Whenever someone gets promoted at 37signals, we post a company-wide message in Basecamp so everyone knows. Here's a real example of a message that covers two promotions (Silvia and Lewis):

@jasonfried

Agent Marie has been busy in our Basecamp today. Adding cards, commenting on replies, writing up reports, digging into stubborn issues, fixing bugs, preparing PRs. Everything posted right to Basecamp, just as if Marie was a human, so other humans (and agents) can follow along and get involved. No special AI features in Basecamp, no AI-is-always-in-the-way overload. Just invite your own agents in, point them at the Basecamp CLI, and they'll get to work just like your own human crew.

@jasonfried

Here's a 6-minute video walkthrough I made for our support team showing them a tweak to the new sidebar in Basecamp 5. It's a fundamental change to a sensitive feature, so I wanted to make sure they had both a heads up, and a principled walkthrough of the reasons behind the change. We're not done with it, but we're far enough along that all the big stuff is represented. I thought people who make product might find this behind-the-scenes stuff interesting, while others will probably be bored out of their minds. You choose!

@jasonfried

Today I did a livestream for about 300 Basecamp customers who were curious to see how we used Basecamp. One of the reasons I love running these are for the edge case requests and questions I get. They push me into obscure corners of the product to see if something's possible. Another reason is because I get directly gauge group enthusiasm around surprisingly small things that make a big difference. It's very hard to pick up on this otherwise when you're working with customers one-on-one. One of those things is the desktop app. Whenever I show that I'm using the dedicated desktop app rather than Chrome or Safari or whatever, people are blown away. In my mind they shouldn't be — Bascamp's had an app for a long time, it's not a big deal. But not enough people know about it. And what's the bit they like the most about the desktop app? It does everything the browser does, but it does one thing less: It doesn't mix Basecamp up with all your other browser tabs. That's what gets the big time ooohs and ahhhs. A simple thing, but a big deal. No more hunting among 65 other tabs for the 3 Basecamp tabs you want to keep open. The desktop app has its own tabs, but they're only Basecamp tabs. No mixing. I never would have known that was such a big deal to that many people had I not be in a group setting showing off the product. Live group demos are really priceless.

@jasonfried

Problem: Your CI server is slow, but your dev machines are fast. Solution: Use your dev machine to run checks quickly instead of waiting on slow CI. https://github.com/basecamp/gh-signoff

@housecor

Fun little (big) project we launched this morning. A live look at how many people are using Basecamp all over the world. http://basecamp.com/live

@jasonfried

Now live in your Basecamp 5 account. Zoom the center column on home to go all-in on the project grid.

@jasonfried

Basecamp 5 is live! And the new website is a throwback to a simpler time. Just show the damn product. Just list the features. Yes, it's agent accessible, but it's not agent hysteric. https://basecamp.com/

@dhh

Lexxy is one of the big upgrades in Basecamp 5. Finally we have tables! We have markdown! We have live syntax highlighting! Trix served us well for many years, but Lexxy's arrival is a massive upgrade. Big props to @meta for making the underlying Lexical toolkit 🤘

@dhh

Here's another look a the same feature, bookmarking, in this case, executed differently in Basecamp 4 vs. Basecamp 5. Even the little things are significantly better.

@jasonfried

First I critique something particularly embarrassing in Basecamp 4, and then show you how we completely redesigned the same flow in Basecamp 5. We grow!

@jasonfried

Omarchy 3.7 is out! Huge release with new CLI, tons more gaming options, unlock screen themeing, OCR text extraction, cliamp, Asus ExpertBook PTL compatibility, and a million other fixes and improvements. https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy/releases/tag/v3.7.0

@dhh

Basecamp is now fully agent accessible with a brand-new and comprehensive CLI, wrapped by a great skill, and backed by a revamped and much expanded API. It's a fantastic way to give your agents access to everything in Basecamp and integrate it anywhere. https://basecamp.com/agents

@dhh

ONCE is back! It's now a full-fledged application server for running dockerized web apps, like Campfire/Writebook/Fizzy or your own vibe-coded adventures. Zero-downtime upgrades, scheduled backups, and a gorgeous TUI with hyperdrive graphics. Enjoy! https://github.com/basecamp/once

@dhh

Omarchy 3.4 is out! Massive release with 61 contributors, three new themes, tailored Tmux, new screenshot flow, new agent features (claude by default + tmux swarm!), keyboard RGB theme syncing, and a million other things. https://t.co/TNTp4kl137 pic.twitter.com/svamyqHV1p

@dhh

INTRODUCING FIZZYHave you noticed that every issue and idea tracking tool you loved slowly morphed into boring, sluggish, corporate bloatware?Trello put on 40 pounds of cruft. Jira started charging by the migraine. Asana tried to become everything to everyone. GitHub Issues… pic.twitter.com/7cGxaWA8kd

@jasonfried