Published on Jun 2, 2024
Why Astrolicious?
This thought piece clarifies my personal view and opinion. It does not represent the opinion of every Astrolicious member, but I base the vision on it. So, I ask our members with a role to stand behind it.
How it all started
There were some discussions in the Astro Discord way back at the end of 2023 about the idea of having a place for community projects, with shared maintenance across multiple people, and a way for the community to find well-maintained and tested projects.
Similar efforts in the past didn’t work out, and having everything scattered creates some challenges. Users might not adopt community projects because they need a way to validate whether a project is well-maintained or high-quality. The dream was born: an unofficial trusted source for community projects, where users can be assured that the projects are well maintained, follow a high-quality standard, and are safe to use.
Strive to make Astro better
I believe Astrolicious, as an open community-driven idea, helps the greater community reduce the dependency attack surface and contributes to Astro’s growth and adoption. Community projects are crucial for the open-source ecosystem. Our passion and motivation are to improve Astro.
How do we differ from Astro?
While we welcome everyone and follow the same code of conduct as Astro, we don’t target the average Astro user. However, we have some projects under the Astrolicious umbrella that offer resources for Astro users.
Astrolicious targets integration creators, theme creators, and other integrable community projects. In fact, everyone feeling home in Astro’s integration channel will feel home at Astrolicious, too. However, it is essential to me that we keep open communication and connections between Astro and Astrolicious.
Which Discord is for me?
First things first, if you are not a member of the Astro Discord, stop reading and join us.
Everyone engaging with Astrolicious should be on the Astro Discord. The Astro Discord was, and always will be, the first place our Astro community will go to. And if you build your own Astro site, you won’t need the Astrolicious Discord.
The Astrolicious Discord targets contributors of our repositories. Even if you are looking for advice on how to build your first integration or theme, the integration channel is a perfect place to start. It should cover most cases but if you feel the need to dive deeper, you can join the Astrolicious server.
Is this a potential Astrolicious Project?
Sometimes, a question arises: Is this a potential Astrolicious Project?
I can’t give a general answer because we welcome every submission and are excited to see the interest. We will discuss every submission and idea. However, looking at the vision helps get a feeling.
Suppose your idea is not an integration, a theme, or another integrable community project. In that case, it does not fit the vision very well. I suggest you keep the idea on your personal GitHub Account and share it in Astro’s showcase channel.
Otherwise, if you want to benefit from a shared group of maintainers all working on your idea, with you also committing to maintaining other projects, then Astrolicious might be a good place for your idea. Still, if you plan to keep it yourself, you may not need Astrolicious at all.
Post Mortem
We will only succeed if Astro succeeds and gets stronger. We work on that goal together and would love to invite you to join us. Whenever you have concerns or are unsure about anything, please reach out to me or us. I want to ensure everyone understands the vision and knows why we’re doing this.
Why Astrolicious? © 2024 by Alexander Niebuhr, is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0