opensource-guide-coach

The `opensource-guide-coach` skill is designed to provide structured guidance for individuals and teams engaging with open source projects. It addresses challenges ranging from starting a project to sustaining and growing it, offering tailored advice based on the user's context. Rather than simply summarizing resources, this skill diagnoses the user's situation, infers the relevant needs, and translates official guidance into actionable next steps. It ensures users can make informed decisions about community health, contributor onboarding, governance, funding, security, legal basics, and project adoption without overwhelming them with excessive documentation or policy drafting unless explicitly requested.

This skill leverages the official Open Source Guides as its primary source of truth, using curated references to route users to the most applicable topics. It identifies the user's persona, project stage, and primary pain points, then selects one to three guide topics to generate practical advice. The output emphasizes prioritized actions—usually three to six steps—scaled appropriately to the maturity of the project. It maintains an advisory approach, linking recommendations back to the official guides, and avoids drafting full governance documents, contributor guidelines, or legal policies unless the user explicitly requests such artifacts.

Target users include project maintainers, prospective open source contributors, and community managers who seek actionable guidance on open source best practices. It is particularly useful for those navigating early launch decisions, attracting contributors, improving contribution workflows, reducing maintainer burnout, establishing governance, adopting codes of conduct, measuring project metrics, securing funding, or understanding open source legal frameworks. This skill serves both individual maintainers and small volunteer-driven projects, helping them build sustainable, healthy, and inclusive open source communities.