Ben Word
Ben Word is an individual product engineer and independent creator, not a company. He builds developer tools and publishes technical writing, including Roots (a set of tools for building WordPress sites), Accept:text/markdown (a reference implementation for serving Markdown to AI agents), and small open-source utilities.
At a Glance
- WordPress agencies and professional WordPress developers
- Web framework and infrastructure developers
- AI-agent, RAG, and documentation-platform builders
- Developers and site operators needing domain intelligence
- +2 more
AI Tools by Ben Word
(1)
Accept:text/markdown
HTTP Content Negotiation Reference
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Products & Services
Open-source WordPress development tools for the professional developer, including Acorn (Laravel functionality in WordPress), Bedrock (Composer/Git WordPress boilerplate), Sage (Laravel Blade/Tailwind starter theme), Trellis (WordPress LEMP stack), Radicle, and WP Packages (Composer packages/repository).
A reference site and readiness checker for serving Markdown to AI agents through HTTP content negotiation. It covers Accept-header parsing, q-values, Vary: Accept, 406 handling, caching/CDN behavior, and recipes for many web stacks.
A Go command-line/TUI replacement for whois that provides tabbed domain and IP intelligence covering registration, DNS, mail authentication, TLS, HTTP, SEO, and technology-stack detection. It also supports JSON output and an SSH demo at quien.sh.
A native macOS menu-bar app for accessing SomaFM stations, with live track updates, media-key controls, independent volume, auto-play, dark mode, and lightweight status-bar operation.
Market Position
Ben's projects are focused, open-source or free alternatives rather than a single enterprise platform: quien positions itself as a richer, structured replacement for whois and addresses capabilities commonly sold by Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz; Accept:text/markdown addresses the gap between publishing .md siblings and implementing full content negotiation; ANSItype is a browser-first alternative to downloading fonts and iterating with FIGlet/tdfiglet; and SomaFM Player is a lightweight native alternative to a browser tab or full media player.
Leadership
Founders
Ben Word
Product engineer; GitHub user @retlehs and creator of roots.io. His public profiles also show WordPress core contributions, plugin development, and a 2019 WordCamp speaker badge; he has been a WordPress.org member since June 1, 2011.
Business Model
Revenue Model
Ben Word's personal site offers WordPress consulting. Roots is presented as open-source and supported by developer sponsorship, while the personal tools documented on the site are distributed through open-source repositories and free web experiences.
Target Markets
- WordPress agencies and professional WordPress developers
- Web framework and infrastructure developers
- AI-agent, RAG, and documentation-platform builders
- Developers and site operators needing domain intelligence
- Terminal and retro-computing enthusiasts
- macOS users who listen to SomaFM
- Professional WordPress developers building and deploying maintainable sites
- Website owners and framework developers serving clean Markdown to AI agents, RAG systems, and documentation clients
- Developers auditing domains, DNS, email authentication, certificates, SEO, and technology stacks
- Terminal users who want randomized ANSI art at shell startup
- Mac users who want lightweight SomaFM playback without a browser tab or full media player
- Designers and developers previewing TheDraw ANSI/ASCII fonts in a browser