gingiris-opensource

Open-Source Marketing — GitHub Stars Growth System

🌍 Language / 语言: English | 中文

Stars don't come from a great repo — they come from a great repo placed in front of the right developers, in the right order. This is the staged decision framework used to take AFFiNE from 0 to 60K stars.

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English Version

The 3-stage framework

Stage 1 — Pre-launch (T-30 → T-0)

• README in English-first; the first screen must be understandable in <3 seconds.
• Demo video ≤ 60s, captioned.
• License chosen deliberately (MIT / Apache-2 / AGPL each carry traps).
• 3–5 early maintainers / contributors lined up.
• Community channel live (Discord or Telegram, English-first).

Stage 2 — Launch (T-0 → T+14)

• Product Hunt (run the dedicated launch sequence).
• Hacker News Show HN — Tuesday 9am ET, or Saturday.
• Reddit — pick 3 relevant subs (r/selfhosted, r/programming, one niche tech sub).
• Deep technical posts on dev.to / Zenn / CSDN.
• 3–5 KOLs to amplify (activity > follower count).

Stage 3 — Growth (T+14 → T+180)

• One technical blog per week.
• Turn GitHub Issues into content (user questions → FAQ → posts).
• Monthly update (mailing list + Discord).
• Localize for going global (Japan/Korea first).

Star Region Distribution (GitHub Trending unlock)

• No single country/region should exceed 20% of your total stars.
• Global healthy split reference: China 19-21%, US 19-21%, rest scattered across Europe / Russia / Canada / Indonesia.
• Tools: star-history.com (trend chart) · oss.cool / OSS Insight (per-country breakdown, built by Chinese devs)
• Launch sequence: Week 1 → overseas-only outreach. Week 2 → domestic (Chinese) outreach. Reversing this breaks the distribution and kills Trending eligibility.
• AFFiNE real case: deliberately skipped WeChat Moments / Chinese community posts in week 1.

README essentials (conversion checklist)

• Structure: big logo → one-liner → badges → short description (reference: Dify, Lobechat, AFFiNE).
• ≤ 8 screens — dev docs go in a separate link, not inline.
• Add a "⭐ star reminder" GIF (same psychology as Bilibili "like / coin / collect" prompt — users need a nudge).
• Backlinks loop: every outbound link (website, blog, docs) must have a visible GitHub link back. Don't let traffic escape with no return path.

PR article strategy

• Publish one authoritative article (official blog / Medium / dev.to) that fully explains the project's value.
• Purpose: give anyone who wants to spread your project a ready-made script. They will use it without asking.
• AFFiNE case: a German user independently posted to 40+ forums with no prior contact — only possible because a clear reference article existed.

Competitor follower DMs

• DM followers of your top competitors on Twitter/X (Notion, Miro, etc.).
• Real benchmark: ~hundreds of DMs → ~hundreds of star conversions.
• Target: users who actively complain about the competitor — they already have switching intent.

Channel order that works

English > multilingual > Chinese-only. Unless your target is Chinese users, launching an English project to Chinese communities first wastes your best shot.

Anti-patterns (the things that get you un-discovered)

• ❌ Farming stars — GitHub detects it fast; the penalty is disappearing from search.
• ❌ Posting to Reddit once and leaving — communities resent it; high ban risk.
• ❌ Too many emojis / badges in the README — lowers credibility.
• ❌ Treating Show HN as a one-shot — engage every comment for the full day.

What to do next

• Stage 1 done → run the Product Hunt launch sequence.
• Show HN succeeds → add SEO monitoring on "<project> github".
• Need a content engine → move to the blog-writing workflow.
• Spotted a competitor's new play → run a competitor teardown.

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中文版

3 阶段框架

阶段 1 — Pre-launch（T-30 → T-0）

• README 英文主，首屏 <3 秒读懂。
• Demo video ≤ 60s，带字幕。
• License 选对（MIT / Apache-2 / AGPL 各有陷阱）。
• 3–5 个早鸟 maintainer / contributor。
• 社群频道就位（Discord 或 Telegram，英文为主）。

阶段 2 — Launch（T-0 → T+14）

• Product Hunt（走统一发布流程）。
• Hacker News Show HN — 周二美东 9am 或周六。
• Reddit — 选 3 个相关 sub（r/selfhosted、r/programming、细分技术 sub）。
• dev.to / Zenn / CSDN 发技术深度文。
• 找 3–5 个 KOL 转（活跃度 > follower 数）。

阶段 3 — Growth（T+14 → T+180）

• 每周 1 篇技术 blog。
• GitHub Issues → 内容素材（用户问题变 FAQ）。
• 每月 1 次 update（邮件列表 + Discord）。
• 出海本地化（日韩先）。

Star 地区分布 & 发布时序

• 同一国家/地区 star 占比不超过 20%，否则难上 Trending。
• 健康分布参考：中国19-21%、美国19-21%，其余分散欧洲/俄罗斯/加拿大/印尼。
• 工具：star-history.com（涨幅趋势）· OSS Insight（国家分布，国人开发）
• 发布时序：第一周只做海外宣发，第二周才做国内。顺序反了会破坏分布比例。
• AFFiNE 真实案例：开源第一周故意不发朋友圈、不进国内社群。

README 优化要点

• 结构：大logo + 一句话介绍 + badges + 简短介绍（参考 Dify / Lobechat / AFFiNE）
• 不超过 8 屏，开发者文档单独一个链接，不塞进 README
• 加提醒点 star 的小动图（类比B站UP主「一键三连」——用户需要被提醒）
• backlinks 循环：所有跳出去的链接（官网/博客/文档站）必须能跳回 GitHub，流量不能有去无回

PR 文章策略

• 准备一篇阐述项目优势的完整文章（官网 Blog / Medium / dev.to）
• 目的：给所有想帮你传播的人一把枪，他们可以直接引用，不需要自己想怎么介绍
• AFFiNE 案例：一个德国用户发了 40 多个论坛，没打招呼就发了——能发出去，是因为有参考文章

竞品 follower 私信

• 给竞品（Notion / Miro 等）的 Twitter follower 发私信
• 实战数据：几百条私信 → 几百个 star 转化
• 优先找「吐槽竞品」的用户，他们已经有切换意愿

渠道顺序

英文 > 多语言 > 纯中文。 除非目标就是中文用户，否则把英文项目先发中文社群是浪费最好的一次机会。

反模式

• ❌ 刷 star（GitHub 很快检测，后果是搜不到）。
• ❌ Reddit 只发一次就跑（社群反感，易被 ban）。
• ❌ README 太多 emoji / badge（降低可信度）。
• ❌ 把 Show HN 当一锤子买卖（要回一整天评论）。

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By Iris (生姜 Iris) · ex-COO @ AFFiNE (0 → 60k★) · Install: npx skills add Gingiris-1031/gingiris-opensource