Ricki Walter · release notes
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Ricki Walter

Technical co-founder of Syncd Health.

Product engineer in Berlin

Read the release notes (.NFO)
Ricki Walter smiling in a dark turtleneck, photographed in black and white.
fig. 1 · current build

[5.0.0] · Jul 2025 to now

  • AddedAmber Hoffman and I are the co-founders of Syncd Health, and we build structured pre-therapy care for the time between deciding to get help and starting psychotherapy in Germany.
  • AddedAmber Hoffman runs our 1:1 navigation calls in English (syncd.health/en/navigation).
  • ChangedAround those calls I build the website and the booking, the legal and privacy pages, SEO and structured data, and the internal tools we run the company on.
  • PrototypeBefore that I built MAE, our first prototype, a voice companion for the wait.
  • AddedCohort 8 of Vision Health Pioneers in Berlin, May 2026 to February 2027, after the SIB Startup Now mentoring at HWR Berlin in the first half of 2026.
  • AddedClaude Code as the tool I use every day, mostly for TypeScript, React and Next.js.
  • Known issueI'm not taking on freelance development projects. Now and then I give workshops on AI integration and rapid prototyping, but most of my time goes to Syncd Health.

[5.1.0] · Notable builds

Built for Syncd Health, with AI assistance.

Addedinternal · in daily use

syncd-brain, the company brain

A company of two collects more research, open questions and half-made decisions than two heads can hold, so all of it lives in one repository where AI agents do the legwork.

Most of the work went into the harness around those agents, because an agent is a model plus its harness. It has custom skills for each field we work in, and a knowledge base where the claims we use in public are checked against their primary sources.

Amber and I get open questions one at a time, each with the context to answer it, and nothing decided gets lost.

$ git log --graph --oneline
  1. harness engineering (HEAD -> main)agent = model + harness
  2. review loopwhat fails goes back
  3. agenticagents do the legwork
  4. context engineeringthe right files at the right time
  5. prompt engineeringwhere it started
Addedlive · German and English

syncd.health

Someone on a waiting list should see in one screen that the wait can be used, and how to start.

It speaks German and English, and the legal and privacy pages, SEO and structured data behind it are mine to keep up to date.

Screenshot of syncd.health in English on a desktop screen, 16 October 2026.
EN · desktop · 16 Oct 2026Inspect
Screenshot of syncd.health in German on a phone, 16 October 2026.
DE · phone · 16 Oct 2026Inspect
  • AddedThe internal tools the team needs. I build those too, small and shaped around how the two of us work.

[5.2.0] · Workshops

Workshops on AI integration and rapid prototyping

Now and then I help teams build with AI tools like Claude and Claude Code.

  • Half dayQuick start. A focused start for your team.
  • One dayFull install. Time to go deeper and build something together.
  • Several daysDeeper support. For teams that want it to become part of how they work.

Book a 15-minute scoping call

[4.0.0] · Dec 2024 to Jul 2025

Shibari Study, interim CTO.

  • AddedAPI integrations with Uscreen, Mailchimp and Facebook, built after the lead developer left.
  • ChangedHow the team works, from WhatsApp groups, Dropbox and separate Trello boards to Slack, Google Workspace and Notion dashboards with templates and documentation.
  • FixedThe handoff. I documented everything and onboarded a replacement developer.

Reviewed-by: Enna Nguyen, Director of Administration and Operations, Shibari StudyWhat stood out to me was how engaged Ricki was.

[3.0.0] to [1.0.0] · Earlier releases

  1. [3.0.0] · 2024

    SPICED Academy in Berlin, UX/UI design programme.

  2. [2.0.0] · Jun 2021 to Oct 2023

    KPMG, two and a half years of web development with Angular frontends and TypeScript API integrations.

  3. [1.0.0] · 2017 · initial release

    B.Sc. Business Informatics, HWR Berlin, 2017 to 2022. Top Talent Award 2018 and 2019 (top 4%). Exchange at Hong Kong Baptist University, Computer Science (DAAD scholarship).

[deps] · Off duty

Off duty, written as package dependencies. The bicycle comes first, because a flat tyre means Ricki is late to everything. Kickboxing at Chimosa, yoga for many years, and optionally bouldering now and then, mountain hikes and a week of snowboarding a year.

package.json · off duty
  • ReadingScience fiction lately, a run of Charles Stross and now Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge, with some nonfiction in between.
  • ListeningThe Tim Ferriss Show, Lenny's Podcast and The Diary of a CEO. And playlists from indie rock and early-2000s indie pop to techno and electro, on Spotify (opens in a new tab).
  • ExperimentalProduced some music. A couple of old tracks are on SoundCloud (opens in a new tab).
  • DeprecatedSkateboarding. Still runs, just rarely.
  • RemovedGuitar in a band
  • RemovedContemporary dance

[issues] · Open an issue

Tell me about your idea or your question.

good first issue

  • Workshops on AI integration and rapid prototyping
  • Conversations with founders building in health or AI
  • Talking shop about product engineering with AI agents
  • The German psychotherapy access problem

I reply by email. You can also write to contact@rickiwalter.com or book a 15-minute scoping call.

10 to 5,000 characters.

Release assets · v2026.10

Shortcuts

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