Portico
Sometimes I read something dense, and a summary is not enough. I want the shape of it. I want the core concept, the structural elements doing the work, and the foundation holding everything together. I am a visual learner, so I built a tool that captures that shape.
The tool
portico (_ii^) takes almost anything – a file, a URL, a git repo, a line of text – and gives you back a small ASCII Greek temple. The roof is the main idea. The pillars are the parts that hold it up. The base is what everything sits on.
Screenshot from its' GitHub repository
Grabbing a random article off the HN front page: Brandur's essay on the minimum viable unit of software and running it through:
portico https://brandur.org/minimum-viable-unit
── essay: The MVU of Saleable Software ───────────────────────────
▲ · ▲
═══ ◆ ═══
╔════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Software viability ║
╚════════════════════════════════════════╝
////º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º~~º\\\\
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
▀██▀ ▀██▀ ▀██▀
██ ██ ██
██ ██ ██
LLM limitations Build vs. buy Viability zone
██ ██ ██
██ ██ ██
▄██▄ ▄██▄ ▄██▄
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Software economics ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════╝
legend:
^ Software viability: Software can be viable despite AI
ii LLM limitations: LLMs require human oversight
ii Build vs. buy: Build threshold depends on software price
ii Viability zone: Software pricing affects buy or build decision
_ Software economics: Cost and value drive software decisions
───────────────────────────────── built with _ii^ ──
That is the architecture. The roof (^) is the main claim: software can still be viable even with AI around. The pillars (ii) are the parts that hold it up, like what LLMs cannot do, when to build instead of buy, and where building actually pays off. The base (_) is what it all sits on, the plain economics of cost and value. The legend at the bottom explains each one.
It can be fed it anything with a shape:
- a line of text, or stdin
- a local file or a whole directory
- a URL (it pulls the page content)
- a git repo
Try it
You can try this right now, nothing to install. Paste a URL or some text and hit render:
If you would rather run it locally:
uv tool install portico-cli
portico README.md
How it works
Two parts. First an LLM reads your input, decides what kind of thing it is, and splits it into the three layers. Then a renderer turns those layers into the temple. The renderer is just code (no model) so the same layers always come out the same way. The model decides what the structure is, the renderer decides how it looks.
What happens when there is no structure to find? Give it a poem, a flat list, some gibberish, and it just says no instead of faking a temple. It admits when there is nothing to draw.
I built this for myself and use it frequently. I am not sure if this utility scales. I enjoy this 'tiny monument of abstraction', and perhaps someone else out there will, too.