Hedonics Driven Development (HDD) — classify software, policy, and life decisions by the human purposes they serve.
| Package | Install | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| hedonics | pip install hedonics |
Shared taxonomy + fungibility calculus — the common language |
| altpath | pip install altpath |
Personal hedonic life assessment — score yourself across 10 domains |
| highnoon | pip install highnoon |
Software purpose assessment — classify code by what it does for humans |
| mainstreet | pip install mainstreet |
Public policy assessment — evaluate policy with real BLS/MIT data |
| frontpage | pip install frontpage |
Hedonic content discovery — YOUR front page, ranked by YOUR needs |
Each works as a CLI, an MCP server (add to Claude/GPT/Cursor), and a Python library.
pip install hedonics
hedonics domains # 10 hedonic life domains (ENDS)
hedonics costs # 9 fungible cost categories (MEANS)
hedonics blockers 07 # What costs block CONNECTION?
hedonics classify "reduce loneliness through community"Every piece of software, every policy, every life decision serves human purposes (ENDS) and costs human resources (MEANS).
ENDS — 10 hedonic domains of intrinsic value:
01 NOURISHMENT 02 SHELTER 03 HEALTH 04 CARE 05 MOBILITY
06 GROWTH 07 CONNECTION 08 RECREATION 09 EXPRESSION 10 MEANING
MEANS — 9 fungible cost categories:
T TIME F FINANCIAL A ATTENTION P PHYSICAL S SOCIAL
E ENVIRONMENTAL R REGULATORY K KNOWLEDGE X STATUS
Many ends are locked behind means costs. Someone who wants more CONNECTION (end) might be blocked by TIME burden (means) from a 60-hour work week. The fungibility calculus computes optimal exchanges: trade your FINANCIAL surplus for TIME reduction (hire help, automate) to unlock CONNECTION.
{
"mcpServers": {
"hedonics": {"command": "python", "args": ["-m", "hedonics.mcp"]},
"altpath": {"command": "python", "args": ["-m", "altpath.mcp"]},
"highnoon": {"command": "python", "args": ["-m", "highnoon.mcp"]},
"mainstreet": {"command": "python", "args": ["-m", "mainstreet.mcp"]},
"frontpage": {"command": "python", "args": ["-m", "frontpage.mcp"]}
}
}- BLS American Time Use Survey — how humans actually spend their 24 hours
- MIT Living Wage Calculator — what humans need across 8 expenditure categories
- BLS Consumer Price Index — hedonic quality adjustment methodology
- Census American Community Survey — housing, insurance, commuting, income by geography
See CONTRIBUTING.md. We especially need help with:
- Test coverage (currently zero)
- Data connectors (BLS API, MIT Living Wage, Census ACS)
- Exchange rate calibration from empirical research
- MCP server testing across different LLMs
Pre-alpha. The framework is under active development.
MIT
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