looking out over the valley from the top of a hill, sun high, path curving off to the right

a field guide · specimen nº ookpassant

chelsea
hopkins

chartered PR person who'd rather ship the thing than write the deck about it.
comms lead by day. i build apps and websites by night, and for other people too.

available for app + web work through hopkins action

i · aboutii · for hireiii · specimensiv · sightingsv · life historyvi · field notesvii · range
i

about

this site is laid out as a field guide because everything i make turns out to have an animal in it.

me hopping between mossy rocks beside a river in a wood, arms out for balance
plate i · the specimen, in habitat.

i'm chelsea. i live on the edge of the forest of dean and i've spent the last decade doing communications for a council, an events agency and a global hosting company. somewhere along the way i started building the tools i wished existed, and didn't stop.

the day job is pr and social at scale. the night job is code: two apps of my own, a handful of open source things, and websites that real businesses run on. i'm a chartered pr practitioner, a motorsport marshal, and the person who ends up holding the clipboard.

off the clock: woods, rivers, racecars, and a convention i help run once a year.

  • i ship small and often.
  • posthog on everything from day one.
  • claude in the loop, me on the veto.
  • i write the docs first.
  • nocturnal, mostly.
ii

for hire

app and web development, through hopkins action.

i build apps and websites for people who'd rather it just worked. small team, fast turnaround, and i'll tell you when something's a bad idea.

based in gloucestershire. working anywhere.

websites
wordpress and woocommerce that businesses run on. bookings, memberships, stock control, dealer maps. i've been building on wordpress since 2008, and a platform i built is live on three client sites right now.
apps
mobile apps in expo and react native, shipped to both stores. web apps in next.js and supabase. whimsee, below, is what that looks like when i build it for myself.
the bits around it
analytics wired in from day one so you can see what's happening. the copy, the launch, the press. i did comms before i did code, and it shows.

currently taking on work. email me, or go through hopkinsaction.com.

  • typescript
  • node
  • react
  • react native
  • expo
  • next.js
  • supabase
  • postgres
  • cloudflare
  • docker
  • php
  • wordpress
  • woocommerce
  • laravel
  • claude api
  • posthog
iii

specimens

the two i built for myself.

low sun through a pine wood, long shadows across deep moss, a small stream cutting through
plate ii · pine wood, november. a good place to hide a note.

whimsee

live on ios + android

why
i wanted an app that sends you outside instead of keeping you in. you hide a small note where you stand. only someone who walks there can read it. no feed, no algorithms, no infinite anything.
distinguishing marks
postgis decides whether you're actually there. row level security keeps every note dark until you are. edge functions do the rest.
diet
expo / react native · next.js on cloudflare workers · supabase · posthog
habitat
wherever you happen to be standing.
a jackdaw held gently in a hand, pale eye looking at the camera
plate iii · a jackdaw. not mine. photo by emma lambert.

jackdaw

closed beta

why
nobody's coming to run your socials. jackdaw drafts posts in your voice, you veto every one, and it learns what lands.
distinguishing marks
one typescript core under both faces. claude writes per-platform captions, headless chromium renders the carousels, and publishing is idempotent across ten platforms, so a retry never double-posts.
diet
typescript / node · telegram bot + web app · claude api · headless chromium · posthog
habitat
telegram, and a web app for bigger screens. the early queue is open.
a cluster of honey-coloured fungus growing out of a fallen log
fig. 4 · things found out in the open.
iv

sightings

things i've left out in the open.

  1. pressed-hog

    a hedgehog with a wordpress plugin in it. wires posthog into wordpress properly: session replay, surveys, woocommerce events, consent modes, a reverse proxy that ad blockers don't clock, and analytics inside wp-admin.

  2. courser-calculator

    horse genetics for a horse rpg i play. rolls four foals from two parents, then lists every foal the pairing could ever produce. runs entirely in your browser. have a go.

  3. marshpoint

    marshal signups for motorsport events, self-hosted. invite links, licence uploads, team rosters, and a dashboard for whoever's holding the clipboard.

  4. minimum-viable-exercise

    a claude code skill. while claude works, it sets me a quick desk workout and checks afterwards whether i did it.

lesser sightings, some of them feral
  1. where-when

    i had to be in the office 50% of the time. this kept score.

  2. speed-countdown

    an offline pwa so my dad can count down to his racecar arriving. strongly vibe-coded.

  3. dirt-plugin

    wordpress admin for off-road racing.

  4. dirtbike-quiz

    which dirtbike are you.

v

life history

the day job, and the ones before it.

  1. 2023 · now

    communications lead fasthosts, ionos group

    pr and social for a global hosting brand, across ten markets. i took the channels from nearly nothing to the best in the group, and i'm the one they call when something goes sideways.

  2. 2023 · now

    deputy head of creative confuzzled

    a 3,500-person convention that raises a lot for charity. i run the creative team and the guest experience for the week.

  3. 2023 · 2025

    founder escape goat racing

    an off-road race team built from nothing. it ended up on channel 4. i taught tinie tempah to drive a jimny.

  4. 2021 · 2023

    head of brand & marketing pytch

    a live events agency with a private jet in the car park. campaigns for the bbc and others, and a 1,200-delegate congress i stage managed twice.

  5. 2019 · 2021

    communications specialist forest of dean district council

    sole comms lead. then covid happened. i learned crisis comms properly, with the army, navy and raf on the calls.

  6. 2018 · 2019

    group marketing manager ponthir road service station

    five car brands, three sites, one voice. launched the group's first video campaign and won suzuki's purple cow marketing award for it.

  7. before

    earlier family businesses, a sculpture garden, a lot of mud

    it started at my family's off-road centre, hosting groups from the age of fourteen. everything since has been a variation on that.

also seen at

credentials

the long version is a pdf. email me for it.

vi

field notes

things i've built, written up. there's a feed.

  1. 10 september 2026a human veto on ai social posts

    how jackdaw drafts in your voice, waits for you, and publishes to ten platforms without a single platform adapter.

  2. 10 september 2026getting bullied into exercise by claude

    a claude code skill is a markdown file. this one makes claude set you a desk workout while it works, then check up on you.

  3. 10 september 2026how whimsee knows you're there

    a postgis distance check inside one database function, and a table that nobody is allowed to write to.

  4. 10 september 2026wiring posthog into wordpress properly

    consent that actually gates, woocommerce events that don't double-count, a first-party proxy that can't be abused, and analytics inside wp-admin.

  5. 9 september 2026how this site is put together

    a static page on github pages, self-hosted fonts, cookieless analytics, and a fifty-line build script for these notes.

vii

range

where to find me.

you can email me too if you like. hello at this website dot co dot uk.