Building my npx business card

Summary

While I was building ashley.dev, I wanted it to feel genuine, more like a reflection of me, and less like a standard portfolio. One of the sections I added to the About page said npx connect above a set of social icons. In my mind, it was just a playful callout, a nod to the idea of connecting through different platforms.But when Tierney Cyren reviewed the site (and I’m incredibly grateful they did), they pointed something out: from a developer’s perspective, seeing npx connect might imply that there’s a real npx command you could run. Not only would that be confusing, it actually wouldn’t work at all. And if there’s one thing developers are good at, it’s noticing when something feels broken.That simple review didn’t just catch a small mistake, it sparked something bigger. Rather than just brushing it off, Tierney introduced me to something they had built a few years earlier: npm cards. It’s a clever way to publish a small, custom business card that someone could run directly in the terminal.It was one of those moments where thoughtful feedback made everything better and reminded me why I love this community so much.Why a Terminal Business Card?One of the things I’ve always loved about developer culture is how it blends creativity with craft. Little touches, like a CLI-based business card, turn something technical into something personal. It’s a small way of saying, “Hey, behind this code, there’s a human.”When Tierney showed me npm cards, it immediately inspired me. Not only could I make the About section on ashley.dev more intentional, but I could also give people a way to connect with me that felt a little more surprising and a little more me.There’s something delightful about typing a command like npx ashleywillis into your terminal and having it greet you with a card. No installs. No websites. Just an instant connection, right in the place developers spend a good chunk of their time.How It Works: Behind the ScenesAt its heart, an npm card is a small Node.js pro...