Software

In This Section

About

Tools for humans. That phrase started as a tagline for Requests and became a design philosophy that shaped everything I've built since.

If the developer feels stupid, the API is wrong.

Major Projects

Requests — HTTP for Humans. The most downloaded Python package on Earth. 30+ million installs a day.
Certifi — Python's SSL trust store. Mozilla's CA bundle, packaged. Even more downloads than Requests.
Pipenv — Python Dev Workflow for Humans. Pip and virtualenv, unified. Spiritual predecessor to uv.
Tablib — Tabular Datasets for Humans. Format-agnostic data. Your dataset knows how to become CSV, JSON, Excel, YAML.

Libraries

SimpleMind — AI for Humans. One interface to every major AI provider.
Records — SQL for Humans. Just write the query. Get results. Export to anything via Tablib.
Maya — Datetimes for Humans. Parse "tomorrow" and get a timezone-aware result.
Legit — Git for Humans. Simple commands for common Git workflows.
Delegator — Subprocesses for Humans. Shell commands without subprocess pain.
dj-database-url — Database URLs for Django. Born at Heroku, used everywhere.
Background — Background tasks. One decorator, no infrastructure.

Creative

PyTheory — Music Theory for Humans. Scales, chords, and temperaments as Python objects. Read about its revival with AI.
Responder — An experimental HTTP framework. Requests semantics, server side. This site now runs on it.
Infinite State Sample Pack — An open-source collection of audio samples and loops for music production.

Other Projects

kjvstudy.org — A free digital study Bible built with AI. Read about how it was made.
httpbin.org — HTTP request and response testing service.
kennethreitz.org — This website. Now powered by Responder. Open source.

The Philosophy

Every library starts from the same conviction: find the pain point, study how people actually think about the problem, then design an interface that matches their mental model. The Zen of Python captures it:

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.

These aren't just code rules. They're design rules. The same thinking that produces a clean API produces a clear essay and a well-designed day.