Origins: thoughtbot’s 2011 planning application
thoughtbot announced Trajectory on 12 April 2011 as an agile planning tool for teams discussing and organising software projects. The announcement described a desire to connect conversations about an idea to stories explaining the work to be done, with a workflow that designers, developers and clients could understand. See thoughtbot’s launch article.
That record establishes the original product’s subject and developer. It does not establish continuity between that business and this publication, transfer of its intellectual property or endorsement of the current site. AppTrajectory today publishes software-planning guidance and browser-based decision tools. Stuart Kerr Spindlow is not presented as the founder or developer of the former app.
Ideas, discussions and implementation stories
In December 2011, thoughtbot described renaming Discussions to Ideas and improving the relationship between ideas and stories. The stated approach was to discuss an uncertain feature before creating the implementation work, with links between the idea and the stories that came from it. The source is Here’s an Idea.
A separate November 2011 GitHub integration announcement described associating commits with stories through feature branches and links in commit messages. These are historical descriptions of the old application. They are not current integration capabilities offered by this publication, and old instructions should not be used to submit tokens or credentials here.
Why the former product did not have an icebox
thoughtbot’s February 2012 icebox article excerpt distinguished work needing more discussion from features that were out of scope or very low priority. Its earlier Ideas article describes discussing uncertain work before creating stories. Together, these records support the distinction between exploring an idea and treating it as deliverable backlog work.
This is a summary of the retrievable primary records, not a reconstruction of every detail of the former blog post. A historical product choice is not a universal planning rule. For a current method that makes evidence, dependencies and deferral explicit, see backlog prioritisation for small teams.
The historical weekly rhythm
The Rhythm Method announcement dated 17 February 2012 described one-week iterations as part of Trajectory’s intended working rhythm. The brief primary excerpt links that choice to the product’s aim of guiding software development.
Weekly iterations were a feature of that historical approach, not evidence that all agile teams must work weekly. The new publication does not provide an iteration scheduler or reproduce the former product’s velocity calculations. Teams should choose a review rhythm that supports their work and distinguish a planning estimate from a delivery commitment.
Campfire integration, announced in 2012
On 5 March 2012, thoughtbot published an announcement of Campfire integration with Trajectory. It described the integration as a requested feature and linked to the former Mission Control blog for the full post.
The retrieved announcement supports the existence and timing of that historical integration. It does not establish a current service, supported configuration or ongoing delivery of notifications. The current AppTrajectory site offers no Campfire connection and does not ask readers to recreate one.
The historical JSON API
The 22 May 2012 JSON API announcement described published details for Uploads and Comments APIs and subscriber management, alongside an interface for Stories and Ideas driven by the same JSON API. The announcement concerns the former application.
AppTrajectory today does not supply that API. Old API and support URLs are retired-service destinations, not endpoints for the current tools. Do not send former credentials, access tokens or project data to them. The scorecard and cost calculator run in the reader’s page memory without an external API.
The redesign and the old homepage announcement
thoughtbot’s 25 January 2012 redesign article described a lighter colour scheme, improved use of different screen sizes, changes to story search and estimation, and clearer progress for stories associated with ideas. These were changes to the historic application interface.
The later page carried on this domain under the long “today we deployed our new home page” address contained only a short statement that a new homepage accompanied the redesign. Its displayed 2022 publication metadata does not establish that thoughtbot redesigned the application in 2022. This section preserves the subject using the primary 2012 account; it does not reproduce the old interface or imply that the new editorial site is that redesign.
Accounts, pricing and service notice
There are no current Trajectory plans, trial sign-ups, logins or account-recovery facilities on this publication. Historical trial invitations, pricing references and screenshots are not current offers. No shutdown date is asserted here because the reviewed sources do not establish one.
If you already have exports or backups, the software migration checklist can help you inspect what they contain and plan a move. The publisher cannot retrieve missing former accounts or generate their exports. Do not send passwords, API tokens or private project uploads to the contact address.
For questions about the current publication or a correction to this historical summary, use Contact. Read About AppTrajectory for the new editorial remit. The historical record is useful context, but it does not turn former product endorsements into endorsements of this publication.