How Bookshelf is made

Bookshelf is written and maintained by one person, with help from AI coding tools. Here's how that works.

AI is a tool, not the author

AI assistants help write and review code, track down bugs and draft documentation. Every change is read, tested and decided on by the maintainer before it ships. Nothing goes into a release because a tool suggested it.

Changes are checked against an automated test suite, and on real e-readers, before release.

What that means for you

• Bookshelf has no AI features. Nothing on your device talks to an AI service.
• Your books and reading stay on your device. Bookshelf only goes online when you ask it to (updates, author photos, Hardcover, online catalogues, and a few micro-modules), and never sends your library anywhere.
• The code is open. Anyone can read it, or report a problem, on GitHub.

These pages

The site counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics: which pages are read and roughly where from. It sets no cookies and doesn't track you from site to site. That is only this website: the Bookshelf plugin has no analytics of any kind.

The text was drafted with AI help and checked against the code and the app itself. The videos and screenshots aren't generated: they're recordings of the real plugin, driven by scripted taps and swipes, using a library of public domain books from Standard Ebooks.

Theme packs

Each pack's listing on Ko-fi says where its artwork comes from. The Ukiyo-e prints, for example, are public domain works from the Cleveland Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If something here looks wrong, or reads like it wasn't checked, please open an issue.