---
title: "Who made this"
description: "The colophon of the Moat Atlas: authorship, method, stack, sources and licence."
canonical: https://moa.giglabo.com/credits/
locale: en
---

# Who made this

> Markdown twin of https://moa.giglabo.com/credits/ — the same content as the HTML page, a fraction of the bytes.
> Every page of this site has one: append `.md` to any URL, or `index.md` to a directory URL.
> Site structure and the full page list for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt

The Moat Atlas is a cross-section of 35 defensibility mechanics — the ones that decide whether a product stays hard to copy. This page says who dug it, how, and out of what.

## The project

One survey matrix, two sheets. Sheet I is the classification: every mechanic is a shaft, its depth is how long the moat takes to dig, its rock is the kind of defensibility, its thickness is the capital required. Sheet II is the calculator: twelve questions that measure the moat you actually have.

## Authorship

**Denis Esakov** — Survey, catalogue, design and code

Published under the Heretic banner, released under the MIT licence. Corrections to the matrix are welcome — a mechanic in the wrong rock or at the wrong depth is a bug like any other.

## Method

Every mechanic was placed on six axes: rock (the kind of defensibility), depth (1 shovel, 2 excavator, 3 drill rig, 4 mine), capital, whether a solo builder can reach it, how it fares as AI commoditises software, and whether it can be rented rather than built. The groupings on sheet I re-lay the same 35 shafts along each of those axes in turn.

## Made with

- Astro — static pages, en/ru routing, no framework runtime.
- three.js — the geological cross-section.
- GA4 in Consent Mode v2 — cookieless until you say otherwise.
- Claude Code — prototyping and implementation.

## Licence

MIT. The code, the survey matrix and this copy — fork them, republish them, build on them; keep the copyright notice. The whole atlas is open on GitHub.

- [The repository](https://github.com/GigLaboCom/moat-atlas)

## Contact

Write in English — a correction to the matrix, a mechanic that is missing, or an argument about where one belongs.

- X: [@dyesakov](https://x.com/dyesakov)
- Threads: [@d_yesakov](https://www.threads.com/@d_yesakov)
- GitHub: [GigLaboCom/moat-atlas](https://github.com/GigLaboCom/moat-atlas)

## Elsewhere

The atlas is one of the things built at GigLabo — a studio for custom software, web apps and AI. Two neighbours from the same workshop:

- [GigLabo](https://giglabo.com/) — The studio — custom software, web apps and AI solutions.
- [Heretic Lazy Shot](https://giglabo.com/hls) — Capture, annotate and beautify screenshots.
- [MnemoVi!](https://giglabo.com/mvi) — A local video knowledge base — on-device search over everything your videos said and showed.

## Related

- HTML version of this page: https://moa.giglabo.com/credits/
- Русский: https://moa.giglabo.com/ru/credits/
- Atlas: https://moa.giglabo.com/
- Catalogue: https://moa.giglabo.com/moats/
- Calculator: https://moa.giglabo.com/calculator/
- Site map for agents: https://moa.giglabo.com/llms.txt