LAYER 01
Identity & secrets
Password manager, single sign-on, and hardware-key support. The same baseline in every stack.
Anatomy of a stack
What’s in a box
Every Trade Box has the same nine layers. The apps change by profession; the structure does not. This is what “curated” means in practice — not a flat list of tools, but an opinionated stack with a slot for every kind of work a professional in that field does.
The nine layers
LAYER 02
Communication
Email, messaging, and meetings — configured for the field's privacy needs, so a therapist's stack and a teacher's stack are set up differently on purpose.
LAYER 03
Knowledge
Notes, documents, and reference material. The field's institutional memory tool.
LAYER 04
Collaboration
Shared documents, real-time editing, and version history.
LAYER 05
Scheduling
Calendar, appointments, and the recurring obligations the work actually runs on.
LAYER 06
Field-specific tools
The three to six apps unique to the profession. This layer is the reason the stack exists rather than a generic one.
LAYER 07
Finance
Invoicing, expense tracking, payments, and taxes — scaled to the size of the operation.
LAYER 08
Backup & resilience
Automated backup, device management, and offline access where the work needs it.
LAYER 09
Continuing education
Curated learning resources for the field, refreshed quarterly by the board.
A box is the configured intersection of these nine layers. The apps are not always proprietary — open-source tools are explicitly welcome, and recommended where they’re best in class. The board cares about quality and fit, not vendor.
Why this doesn’t exist yet
The pieces exist. The whole product doesn’t. Here is what partial solutions do today, and where each one stops.
App subscription bundles
Solves: Discovery and billing across a few hundred curated apps.
Misses: One platform only. Not curated by profession. No configuration and no sign-in flow.
Batch installers
Solves: Installation.
Misses: No curation, no configuration, no single sign-on.
Package managers
Solves: Install plus light configuration.
Misses: Developer-focused. No sign-on aggregation, no per-profession curation.
Enterprise device management
Solves: Install and configuration at scale.
Misses: Requires an IT department. Cost and complexity that don't fit individuals or small organisations.
Preconfigured cloud environments
Solves: Configuration, for developers.
Misses: Developers only, and cloud-only — not a desktop tool.
Six things at once
The product nobody has built has to be all six of these at the same time. Each one is hard alone; together they need a certification board, an editorial team, an engineering team, and a brand strong enough that people trust the curation.
- Curated by profession — not two hundred apps, the twelve right ones.
- Cross-platform, so the stack follows you between devices.
- One click including configuration — not merely installed, but actually set up to talk to each other.
- Sign-in aggregation, so there is one place to handle the auth flows for every tool in the stack.
- Opinionated by design. A stance, not a marketplace.
- Kept current by editorial review as the field changes.