The real operating rules of a small studio that ships: default to writing, make decisions in the open, keep meetings rare and useful, and treat the people as the thing you are actually maintaining. Not values on a wall, but how the work actually gets done.
7 chapters · 33 rules
This is Northwind Studio's internal handbook, published as a living document because the version we hide in a private wiki always rots. It is how we communicate, decide, build, review, and recover when things break, written plainly and honestly, including the parts that are still arguments. It is opinionated on purpose. If you work here it is the manual; if you do not, it is a functioning team's rules you are welcome to steal from.
Written first for the people who work at Northwind, especially anyone in their first month trying to figure out how we really operate. But it is public because good handbooks are worth reading regardless of where you work, and because a rule you have to explain to strangers is a rule you actually understand. Take what fits your team and leave the rest.
Added the incidents chapter after a rough quarter taught us the hard way, and rewrote the decisions chapter around decision records once we saw how much rework we were avoiding. This handbook is never really finished.
Initial publication — five chapters on communication, decisions, meetings, building, and keeping people sane, written the week we grew past the size where everyone just knew everything.
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