Built to last
An estate register has one job that most software never faces: it must still work on the worst day, years from now, for someone who is not you. Every design choice in Executor File follows from that.
The file outlives the tool
The register is plain YAML: readable in any text editor, on any computer, this decade or next. The encryption is age, an open, formally specified format with independent implementations. The key splitting is ssss, an implementation of Shamir's Secret Sharing, a construction from 1979 that is information-theoretic rather than fashionable. The final artefact is paper, stored with the will.
None of those four things depends on this project existing. The scripts are a convenience for you, the owner; your executor's printed page names the standard tools, not us. If the repository were deleted tomorrow, every sealed Executor File would still open with two commands.
This is the file-over-app argument, applied where it matters most. Notes apps and photo services can afford to bet on their own longevity. A register your family opens after you have died cannot.
The service graveyard
Every service on this list promised to be there when your family needed it. This is why Executor File is a file.
| Service | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lantern | Retired its end-of-life planning service; users were given a support contact and a deadline to extract their own plans. | wellthy.com/lantern |
| Deathswitch | A dead man’s switch service for posthumous messages; the service itself is now defunct. | Wikipedia |
| Legacy Locker | An early digital-estate vault, acquired by PasswordBox in 2013; the product no longer exists. | TechCrunch, 2013 |
| Beyond | A UK funeral and estate comparison service; its domain now serves another company’s content. | beyond.life |
| Farewill | UK online will-writing service, sold to Dignity in 2024. An ownership change, not a shutdown, and users’ documents moved with it. | TechCrunch, October 2024 |
| Everplans | A digital estate-planning vault, sold twice; now owned by a company in the funeral-sales sector. An ownership change, stated as such. | Kates-Boylston |
| Cake | An end-of-life planning platform, acquired by a funeral-home operator. An ownership change, stated as such. | Foundation Partners |
The acquisitions above are ownership changes, not failures, and are stated as such. The point is narrower and harder to argue with: a hosted service is a bet that a company outlives you, keeps its terms, and keeps its door open. A file in your family's hands makes no bet at all.
What lasting actually requires
- No dependency on us. Recovery is two standard commands. The project could vanish; the instructions would not notice.
- No dependency on a business model. There is no revenue behind the tool, so there is no revenue that can run out. It is MIT licensed and public.
- No format lock. The register validates against standard JSON Schema. Any conforming tool can check it; any editor can read it.
- Paper at the end. The one component with a thousand-year track record. The printed page and shares work with the power off.
If you want to check any of this rather than take it on trust, Why trust this is the page for you.