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Cerberus
Created, maintained, and sold an open-source email framework used by thousands of developers.
I created Cerberus, an open source email framework, as an opportunity to scratch my own itch for building responsive HTML emails that worked consistently across clients. What started as a side project grew into one of the most widely used email frameworks on GitHub. During my time at Stack Overflow, I also used it to build the first ever email design system. By the time I sold it in 2025, the repo had over 5K stars, earned me a few conference speaking opportunities, and connected me more deeply with the email development community.
I worked with a brand designer to give Cerberus a real identity. Once we had the logo, I adapted it for everything: documentation, GitHub, icons, and anywhere else the project lived.
I built the Cerberus documentation site from scratch, designing it in the browser and hand-coding everything. The content came from years of answering community questions and knowing exactly what people needed help with.
A framework shouldn't dictate what something looks like. These emails are all built on the same Cerberus code and you'd never know it, which is kind of the whole idea.
When I joined Stack Overflow, everyone was struggling to build email. I recognized the opportunity and rebuilt the entire email system around Cerberus, turning my personal project into one of the first email design systems in existence, complete with its own documentation site.
