Finder of new ways to confuse myself
Varun Vachhar
DX engineer & Generative artist
About
I started as a front-end developer, drawn to the visual side of the web: UI, CSS, animation. Component-driven development and design systems pulled me toward Developer Experience, and I'm now on the DX team for Storybook and Chromatic, where I work on tools to build, test, and document UIs.
As an artist, I make minimalist work with code that uses limited palettes, simple geometry, and looping motion. I work with web technologies such as Canvas, SVG, WebGL, and shaders.
Originally from New Delhi, now based in Toronto.
Generative art
My practice starts from the belief that the browser is the medium. Each piece is its own object, not a stand-in for something else: a specific object. I don't arrange the compositions by hand; I write a system that arranges them beyond my conscious intent. There's nothing to decode and no hidden meaning; the work is meant to be looked at directly.
Engineering & DX
I build developer tools and the docs and guides that go with them. The work spans core tooling, testing methodology, and the sites that ship around them.
- E01
Storybook
Built addons now in its core (Measure, Outline, Highlight), the addon catalog and kit, and co-organized the Storybook Day conference.
- E02
Chromatic
Primary maintainer of the docs and marketing site. Wrote the Visual and UI Testing Handbooks.
- E03
Miscellaneous
xvg, a Chrome extension to debug SVG paths visually, plus work across the Tachyons ecosystem: tachyons-tldr (a quick reference), tachyons-measured, and awesome-functional-css.
Writing
I write about creative coding from a front-end developer's perspective.