developer-community-launch skill (samber): should you launch a developer community?

Decides whether, where and when to launch a developer community, then plans seeding and the first 90 days.

Installs: 12.8K; on skills.sh
Stars: 7; on GitHub
Files: 4; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Nov 2026; last repo commit

developer-community-launch decides whether a developer community is the right instrument at all before it plans one. After an interview of up to twelve questions, Claude scores five readiness gates (demand, owner, purpose, venue vacuum and seed supply), gives a verdict of launch, launch later or do not launch, and picks a venue class before any vendor. If the answer is go, it plans founding-member seeding, the first 90 days, day-90 thresholds and fold-back criteria, and writes a nine-section Community Launch Brief. SKILL.md treats "do not launch yet" as a valid and frequent answer.

Good for

Maintainers and DevRel leads asking "should we open a Discord?"
Founders planning a community around a developer product
Community managers who need go or no-go criteria in writing

Install developer-community-launch

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the developer-community-launch skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add samber/developer-relations-skills
/plugin install developer-relations-skills@developer-relations-skills

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.

2
Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

Install the whole set, not one skill: the README says the skills reference each other, so picking one leaves those pointers going nowhere. The repo tree holds 93 skill folders (the kickoff skill's text says 65). Fourteen of them bundle .py or .sh files; developer-community-launch bundles none. The tree holds no hooks, agents or MCP config files.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Decides whether, where and when to launch a developer community, then plans its seeding and first 90 days - venue selection, founding-member seeding, go/no-go criteria, the cheaper no-community alternatives, and shutdown criteria. Use whenever someone asks whether to start a Discord, Slack or forum for their users, which community platform to pick, how to launch or seed a developer community from zero, or how to reach critical mass - even if they only say "we should have a Discord". Do NOT use for a community that already exists; measurement is samber/developer-relations-skills@developer-community-health and moderation is samber/developer-relations-skills@developer-community-moderation.

Sections in SKILL.md

Route before planning
Interview
Workflow
Whether: readiness gates
Alternatives when the verdict is "not yet"
Where: venue class before vendor
Brainstorm the shape
Seed: founding cohort and the first 90 days
Objective: critical-mass thresholds
B2B versus B2C
Failure modes
Invocation examples
Output
References

Key facts

Author: Samuel Berthe (named in SKILL.md metadata and the plugin manifest)
License: MIT (LICENSE file, SKILL.md and plugin.json agree)
Installs on skills.sh: 12,811 (Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars: 8 for the whole samber/developer-relations-skills repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last repo commit: Nov 1, 2026
Audits on skills.sh: Gen Agent Trust Hub: pass, Socket: pass, Snyk: pass
What it includes: 5 files in the git tree: SKILL.md, 3 reference files and evals/evals.json. No scripts.
Part of: The developer-relations-skills plugin: 93 skill folders in the git tree
Works in: Claude Code and Claude.ai plugin marketplaces, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI, as the README documents

What it includes

Sends moderation, health, champions, meetups and OSS launches to other skills
Six redirects, such as developer-community-moderation for a community that already exists.
Read · Route before planning
Up to 12 questions; 4, 5 and 9 feed the demand, venue and seed gates
Question 6, the owner's sustained weekly hours, is called the decisive one.
Read · Interview
Scores demand, owner, purpose, venue vacuum and seed supply
All five pass means launch. Four with a written mitigation means launch later. Three or fewer means do not launch.
Read · Readiness gates
Five cheaper options ranked by evidence bought per standing hour
Answer publicly where the audience is, forge-native discussions, a troubleshooting or FAQ surface, office hours, and an email or issue-based feedback loop.
Read · Alternatives when not yet
Four classes: forge-native, rented public space, owned forum, owned chat
Constraints delete a class instead of demoting it. Vendor mechanics live in references/platform-mechanics.md.
Read · Venue class before vendor
Recruits 20-50 founding members by hand and opens one small surface
Six steps, then a founding cohort, invited beta and public announcement sequence gated on activity, not dates.
Write · Seed and first 90 days
Six day-90 signals and an exit written before launch
Presented as baselines to recalibrate against your own data. Exit order: archive to read-only, merge into the space the audience uses, or convert to a support channel.
Write · Thresholds and fold-back
Nine sections, each agreed with you before the next
Verdict, audience and outcome, venue, community model, seeding plan, first-90-days calendar, thresholds, fold-back criteria and open risks.
Write · Community Launch Brief

From the official docs

Permissions

Low risk

developer-community-launch is interview and planning instructions with no scripts, and it may save notes to devrel-context.md. Our advice: check that file before you commit it.

What it can do

Read your data
Create and change things
Delete things
Read-only mode

Watch out for

It may save notes to devrel-context.md
SKILL.md tells Claude to keep task and project context in devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file, or in the memory system your tool already uses. Check the file before you commit it. github.com
The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 with scripts
The README says to install every skill. The git tree has 93 skill folders, and 14 of them hold .py or .sh files. This skill bundles no scripts and the tree holds no hooks, agents or MCP config files. github.com

Technical details

Turning on read-only	SKILL.md describes no read-only mode.
Sign-in and keys	SKILL.md names no account, key or token.
Scopes	Claude writes a launch brief in the conversation Product and audience details you share go into the conversation Writes devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file

Questions

What does developer-community-launch do?

It decides whether a developer community is worth launching, which venue class fits and when to open it. If the answer is go, it plans the seeding, the first 90 days, the pass thresholds and the exit.

How do I install it?

Use the install box at the top. The README says to install every skill in the repo, because the skills point to each other. The box shows the whole-set routes the README documents.

Will it tell me to launch?

Not always. SKILL.md treats "do not launch yet" as a valid, frequent recommendation, and says most failures happen before launch day, when an empty room opens because launching felt like progress.

Does it pick Discord or Discourse for me?

It picks a venue class first, and vendors after. The Discord and Discourse playbooks are separate skills it points to once a vendor is chosen.

Are the day-90 thresholds industry standards?

No. SKILL.md says they are baselines adapted from published community-health practice and should be recalibrated against the community's own trailing data.

Is it safe to install?

The skill bundles no scripts. What you tell Claude about your product and audience goes into your conversation. The whole-set install adds 93 skills, some of which bundle scripts; the permissions section has the count.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository: samber/developer-relations-skills
Folder: skills/developer-community-launch

samber/developer-relations-skills skills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 3

developer-community-launch SKILL.md · github.com
README · github.com
LICENSE · github.com