axe is more than a collection of utilities—it is an invocation of first principles. In the hands of our pre-dynastic ancestors, the stone axe was the original multi-tool: it cleared forests for fields, shaped timber for shelter, defended the community, and, in its ceremonial form, became a symbol of authority and order. The Chinese character for “father” (父) comes from the same root as the character for “axe” (斧)—a hand gripping the haft, representing provision, protection, and foundational power. In that same spirit, this project is built not as another layer of abstraction, but as a return to essential tools—sharp, reliable, and direct. Each utility here is crafted to cut through modern complexity, to shape your environment with intention, and to serve as a trusted extension of the developer’s will.

This toolkit embraces the philosophy that the most enduring tools are those that become invisible in their use—seamless, precise, and deeply integrated into the workflow. Like its ancient namesake, axe is meant for both creation and stewardship: to lay groundwork, to refine structure, and to maintain clarity in systems that grow organically over time. It does not seek to automate everything, but to empower deliberate action—offering clean edges where others might provide only noise.

In a landscape cluttered with transient frameworks and bloated dependencies, axe stands as a deliberate alternative. It is a commitment to enduring utility, to tools that carry the weight of history in their function and the elegance of simplicity in their form. Whether you are breaking new ground or tending to established foundations, these utilities are designed to be held firmly in hand—ready to build, to clear, and to define what comes next.

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1. Install stow from your system package manager.
2. Run ./restow to (re)generate bin/.
3. Add bin/core/ and perhaps bin/gen/ to your PATH.

Roughly speaking, core contains foundational utilities that may be useful in production or automated environments, and gen contains complex utilities that are useful for development or manual environments.