Welcome

The Open Vector is free and open.

Every lesson, guide, and resource is yours to explore without an account. But if you sign in, your progress is tracked across sessions and devices — pick up where you left off and build your learning record.

Go Further

A curated library of books, articles, courses, tools, and references. Everything the curriculum points to, and more — all in one place.

Get the Scaffold →
Type
Topic
97 resources
book

Pro Git

Scott Chacon & Ben Straub

The complete guide to Git. Free, thorough, and the definitive reference.

fundamentals
book

Thinking in Systems

Donella Meadows

The primer on systems thinking. Short, clear, and permanently changes how you see the world.

architecture
book

A Philosophy of Software Design

John Ousterhout

How to reduce software complexity. The best book on writing clean systems.

architecture
book

Shape Up

Basecamp

Product development methodology for small teams. Free. Opinionated and practical.

process
book

The Mythical Man-Month

Fred Brooks

Classic essays on software project management. "Adding people to a late project makes it later."

leadership
book

Getting Real

Basecamp

Building web apps with less. Free. A manifesto for shipping small and fast.

process
book

Database Design for Mere Mortals

Michael J. Hernandez

Practical, accessible guide to relational database design.

architecture
book

Information Architecture (4th Edition)

Rosenfeld, Morville & Arango

The definitive reference on organizing information for the web.

architecture
book

How to Make Sense of Any Mess

Abby Covert

Information architecture for everyone. Short, visual, and immediately applicable.

architectureresearch
book

The Design of Everyday Things

Don Norman

Foundational design principles. Why doors confuse you and what that means for software.

craft
book

Ship It!

Jared Richardson & Will Gwaltney

Practical, no-nonsense guide to shipping software.

process
book

Just Enough Research

Erika Hall

How to do meaningful design research without getting lost. Sharp and funny.

research
book

The Mom Test

Rob Fitzpatrick

How to talk to customers without them lying to you. Essential for anyone building products.

research
book

Competing Against Luck

Clayton Christensen

The Jobs to Be Done framework from the person who coined it.

research
book

Intercom on Jobs to Be Done

Intercom

Practical, product-focused take on JTBD. Free download.

research
book

Sprint

Jake Knapp

The five-day design sprint process from Google Ventures.

processresearch
book

Creative Confidence

Tom & David Kelley

Unleashing creative potential in yourself and your team. From the founders of IDEO.

craft
book

The Lean Startup

Eric Ries

Build-Measure-Learn methodology. The framework behind modern product development.

process
book

Rocket Surgery Made Easy

Steve Krug

DIY usability testing. Do it yourself, this week, with no budget.

research
book

Don't Make Me Think

Steve Krug

The classic on web usability. Short, funny, still relevant after 20 years.

craft
book

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

Martin Kleppmann

Modern distributed systems design. Dense but rewarding.

architecture
book

Staff Engineer

Will Larson

What happens after senior engineer. Leadership through technical excellence.

leadership
book

The Checklist Manifesto

Atul Gawande

How simple checklists prevent catastrophic failures. Applicable everywhere.

leadership
book

Accelerate

Forsgren, Humble & Kim

The science of DevOps. Data-driven proof that speed and quality are not tradeoffs.

leadership
book

Team Topologies

Skelton & Pais

Organizing teams for fast flow of change. Essential for multi-agent thinking.

leadership
book

The Manager's Path

Camille Fournier

Engineering management at every level. Read this even if you never manage people.

leadership
book

The Practice

Seth Godin

Shipping creative work consistently. The antidote to waiting for inspiration.

craft
book

Atomic Habits

James Clear

Building and breaking habits through tiny changes. Systems over goals.

craft
book

Design Systems

Alla Kholmatova

Creating effective, evolving design systems. From Smashing Magazine.

architecturecraft
book

The Pragmatic Programmer

Hunt & Thomas

Foundational software craftsmanship. Timeless principles for building well.

craft
book

Show Your Work

Austin Kleon

Sharing your creative process publicly. Short, visual, and motivating.

community
book

Teaching Tech Together

Greg Wilson

Evidence-based teaching for programming. Free online.

community
book

Working in Public

Nadia Asparouhova

The making and maintenance of open source software. Fascinating and honest.

community
book

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Eric Raymond

Open source development models. The essay that helped launch a movement.

community
book

Get Together

Richardson, Huynh & Sotto

How to build community. Practical stories and frameworks.

community
book

The Art of Gathering

Priya Parker

Creating meaningful gatherings. Transforms how you think about bringing people together.

community
book

Steal Like an Artist

Austin Kleon

Creative inspiration and influence. Nothing is original — and that is liberating.

craft
book

The War of Art

Steven Pressfield

Overcoming creative resistance. Short, fierce, and necessary.

craft
book

Refactoring UI

Adam Wathan & Steve Schoger

Practical UI design tactics for developers. Before and after examples.

craftweb
book

Domain-Driven Design Quickly

InfoQ

Quick introduction to Domain-Driven Design concepts. Free.

architecture
course

The Missing Semester of Your CS Education

MIT

The tools and skills nobody teaches in CS. Shell, Git, editors, debugging. Start here.

fundamentals
course

Command Line Power User

Wes Bos

Free terminal video series. Quick, practical, well-produced.

fundamentals
course

Prompt Engineering for Developers

DeepLearning.AI

Structured prompt engineering from Andrew Ng. Free short course.

ai
course

GitHub Skills

GitHub

Interactive, hands-on GitHub learning paths. Learn by doing.

fundamentals
tool

explainshell.com

Paste any shell command, get every part explained. Brilliant learning tool.

fundamentals
tool

Linux Command Library

Searchable reference for every terminal command. Works for Mac too.

fundamentals
tool

DNS Checker

Check DNS propagation across the world in real time.

deployment
tool

Loopy

Nicky Case

Interactive tool for thinking in systems. Draw loops, watch them play out.

architecture
tool

Miro

Collaborative whiteboard for synthesis, mapping, and brainstorming.

research
tool

OptimalSort

Optimal Workshop

Card sorting tool for testing information architecture with real users.

research
tool

Netlify Drop

Netlify

Drag-and-drop instant deployment. Ship a static site in seconds.

deployment
tool

Learn Git Branching

Interactive Git visualization and practice. See branches come to life.

fundamentals
tool

JSON.org

The JSON specification. Short, clear, and the authoritative source.

architecture
article

Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

Donella Meadows

Where to push for the biggest systemic change. Foundational systems thinking essay.

architecture
article

Know Your Customers' Jobs to Be Done

Harvard Business Review

HBR article on the Jobs to Be Done framework. Accessible and practical.

research
article

How DNS Works

Visual, step-by-step DNS explainer. Makes the invisible visible.

deployment
article

What Is DNS?

Cloudflare

Clear, thorough DNS fundamentals from Cloudflare.

deployment
article

DNS Zines

Julia Evans

Illustrated, joyful DNS concepts. Makes networking feel approachable.

deployment
article

The Twelve-Factor App

Heroku

Twelve principles for building modern, portable, scalable web applications.

architecture
article

The Feynman Technique

Farnam Street

Learn anything by teaching it simply. If you cannot explain it, you do not understand it.

craft
article

Working Backwards

Werner Vogels (Amazon)

Start from the customer and work backwards. The Amazon product development method.

process
article

The Pomodoro Technique

Francesco Cirillo

Time-boxed focus sessions. Simple, effective, and battle-tested.

process
article

Patterns.dev

Lydia Hallie & Addy Osmani

Modern web development and design patterns. Free, visual, well-explained.

web
article

Event Storming

Alberto Brandolini

Collaborative domain modeling with sticky notes. DDD made accessible.

architecture
article

Gamestorming

Games, exercises, and activities for creative collaboration and ideation.

process
article

How to Contribute to Open Source

GitHub

Comprehensive guide to making your first open source contribution.

community
article

Building in Public

Kevon Cheung

The practice of sharing your building journey. Community and accountability.

community
article

The Systems Thinker

Articles, resources, and tools for systems thinking practitioners.

architecture
article

Code Review Best Practices

Google

Google's engineering practices for effective code review.

leadership
article

Usability Testing 101

Nielsen Norman Group

Introduction to usability testing. When, why, and how.

research
article

Rapid Prototyping

Nielsen Norman Group

Prototyping techniques and best practices for fast validation.

research
article

Which UX Research Methods

Nielsen Norman Group

Choosing the right research approach for your question.

research
article

Information Architecture Articles

Nielsen Norman Group

Curated collection of IA best practices and research.

architecture
article

Synthesizing Research

Indi Young

Techniques for making sense of qualitative research data.

research
article

JTBD.info

Jobs to Be Done resource hub. Articles, tools, and case studies.

research
article

IDEO Design Thinking

IDEO

IDEO's open design thinking methodology and toolkit.

process
article

Reflective Practice

Donald Schön

The concept of the reflective practitioner. Learning by examining your own work.

craft
article

Awesome README

GitHub Community

Curated list of excellent READMEs. Learn documentation by example.

fundamentals
reference

React Official Tutorial

React Team

Start here for React. The official interactive tutorial.

web
reference

Thinking in React

React Team

React's core mental model. How to break a UI into components.

web
reference

Describing the UI

React Team

React component patterns and JSX fundamentals.

web
reference

Vite Getting Started

Vite Team

Modern build tool setup. Fast, minimal configuration.

web
reference

Vite — Deploying a Static Site

Vite Team

Deploy options for Vite projects. Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, and more.

deployment
reference

Netlify Docs — Get Started

Netlify

Netlify platform onboarding. From zero to deployed.

deployment
reference

Netlify Docs — Custom Domains

Netlify

Domain configuration, HTTPS, and DNS setup on Netlify.

deployment
reference

Vercel Docs — Deployments

Vercel

Deployment on Vercel. Git integration, preview deploys, serverless functions.

deployment
reference

GitHub Pages Docs

GitHub

Free static hosting directly from a GitHub repository.

deployment
reference

GitHub Git Handbook

GitHub

Git basics from GitHub. Clear, beginner-friendly reference.

fundamentals
reference

Git Stash Documentation

Git

Official reference for git stash. Save work without committing.

fundamentals
reference

Claude Code Documentation

Anthropic

Claude Code overview and reference. The starting point for AI-assisted building.

ai
reference

Claude Code Tutorials

Anthropic

Step-by-step guides for Claude Code. Practical walkthroughs.

ai
reference

Claude Code Best Practices

Anthropic

Getting the most from Claude Code. Patterns that work.

ai
reference

Anthropic Prompt Engineering Guide

Anthropic

Official prompt engineering documentation. Techniques and strategies.

ai
reference

Anthropic Cookbook

Anthropic

Example code and patterns for building with Claude. Open source.

ai
reference

MDN: Dealing with Files

Mozilla

Web file structure basics. How files and folders work for websites.

webfundamentals
reference

Prisma Data Modeling Guide

Prisma

Database and data modeling concepts. Clear, modern, well-illustrated.

architecture
reference

Indie Hackers

Community of founders and builders. Stories, forums, and inspiration.

community