Building Developer Communities

Create thriving developer communities that grow organically and deliver value.

Skill Contract

Parameters

parameters:
  required:
    - community_goal: string
    - target_platform: enum[discord, slack, github, discourse]
  optional:
    - initial_size_target: integer
    - budget: float

Output

output:
  launch_plan:
    strategy: markdown
    channel_structure: array[Channel]
    success_metrics: object

Community Lifecycle

Planning → Launch → Growth → Maturity → Scale
    ↓        ↓        ↓         ↓         ↓
 Strategy  Seed    Engage   Programs  Leaders
           Users   Content  Champions Autonomy

Platform Selection

Platform	Best For	Size	Key Feature
Discord	Real-time, casual	100-50K	Roles, threads
Slack	Professional, B2B	100-10K	Integrations
GitHub Discussions	OSS projects	Any	Code-linked
Discourse	Long-form	1K-100K	SEO, archives

Launch Strategy

Pre-Launch (4-8 weeks)

1. Define community purpose and values
2. Choose platform and set up structure
3. Create welcome content and guidelines
4. Recruit 20-50 founding members
5. Seed initial conversations

Launch Week

1. Announce across channels
2. Host welcome event (AMA, office hours)
3. Personally welcome every new member
4. Start daily engagement cadence
5. Gather early feedback

Growth Tactics by Stage

Stage	Tactic	Goal
0-100	Personal invitations	Quality seed
100-500	Content marketing	Organic growth
500-2K	Events, partnerships	Momentum
2K-10K	Champion program	Scale
10K+	Self-sustaining	Autonomy

Engagement Programs

• Welcome Flow: Onboarding for new members
• Recognition: Badges, roles, shoutouts
• Champions: Ambassador program
• Events: Office hours, AMAs, hackathons
• Content: Member spotlights, tutorials

Retry Logic

retry_patterns:
  low_engagement:
    strategy: "Personal outreach to top 20 members"
    escalation: "AMA or exclusive event"

  member_churn:
    strategy: "Exit survey, re-engagement campaign"

  toxic_behavior:
    strategy: "Private warning, then public reminder"

Failure Modes & Recovery

Failure Mode	Detection	Recovery
Ghost town	<5 messages/day	Seed content, personal pings
Toxic culture	Complaints	Enforce CoC, public statement
Off-topic drift	Unrelated posts	Redirect, add channels

Debug Checklist

□ Community purpose clearly stated?
□ Platform analytics configured?
□ Code of conduct visible?
□ Welcome message set up?
□ Initial content seeded?
□ Moderator coverage scheduled?
□ Recognition system active?

Test Template

test_community_building:
  unit_tests:
    - test_onboarding_flow:
        assert: "Welcome message within 1 min"

  integration_tests:
    - test_member_journey:
        assert: "First post → Reply within 24h"

Success Metrics

Metric	Target
Monthly Active Users	30%+ of total
Messages per member	5+ per month
Response time	<4 hours
Member retention	80%+ at 30 days

Observability

metrics:
  - total_members: integer
  - mau: integer
  - messages_per_day: integer
  - response_time_avg: duration

See assets/ for community templates.