Full conversation with Mitchell: www.youtube.com/live/0npMvuh...
If this resonates, I tried to turn the same problem into a short, practical FOSDEM talk: tactics maintainers are using to keep mentorship sustainable as volume scales. Recording: fosdem.org/2026/schedul...
βAI is destroying my humanity.β @mitchellh.com (HashiCorp; Ghostty, Vouch). From a conversation @helen.blog and I had with him.
Not an anti-AI take. A maintainer capacity take. Creation got cheaper. Review didnβt.
Maintainers: whatβs helped you keep mentoring sustainable?
Weβre going live in less than an hour π
At 3pm ET / 12pm PT, @helen.blog and I will be live with @mitchellh.com, talking about Vouch and what community trust actually looks like in open source.
Hope you can join us.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0npM...
"The Synthetic Senior" β my #FOSDEM talk on AI + open source mentorship
The 3 C's for finding contributors worth investing in:
π‘ Comprehension
βοΈ Context
π Continuity
Slides: docs.google.com/presentation...
up next: write a blog post π
In the meantime: www.linkedin.com/posts/abbyca...
Catch me at FOSDEM in just over an hour in the Community Devroom! Excited to share some thoughts on FOSS mentorship in the age of AI.
We're in UB5.230 -- learn from my mistakes & go through the U courtyard to get in
fosdem.org/2026/schedul...
Looking for examples: do you know any OSS projects that have thoughtfully updated their contribution process for AI-assisted PRs?
Interested in:
* PR templates asking for intent/reasoning
* Comprehension checks
* Other friction-adding methods
Would love to learn from communities experimenting here
One of my favorite parts of FOSDEM is catching up with maintainers π
This year we're adding a Monday morning unconference for maintainers. You bring the topics.
Joining us? Request a spot:
π Sunday Night Social: gh.io/fosdem-2026
β Monday Unconference: gh.io/fosdem-2026-...
Building for what lasts. At work, in community, and at home.
My 2025 year in review β
medium.com/@abbycabs/ab...
She wrote a patent about TIME TRAVEL but still keeps developers grounded in reality π°οΈ
@angiejones.tech on balancing visionary thinking w/ practical AI: "Everyone wants to be a visionary, but developers are exhausted by the hype."
gh.io/podcast
Mona the Octocat holding a pink heart
You can give back to the open source projects that power your world. Support the developers who keep your favorite tools running with GitHub Sponsors.
https://github.com/sponsors/explore
Also: In 2016, Octoverse gave me a mention that lived on my resume for YEARS.
Now I'm in the launch interviews. Still processing π€―
Better late than never: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV57...
The bit I'm proudest of: "While AI grabs headlines, the real story is 180 million developers collaborating globally"
That feeling when the Octoverse report (featuring your interview!) drops during Universe week and you're too heads-down to share itπ€¦ββοΈ
Finally watched myself talk about 36M new developers joining GitHub this year.
π§΅
Why fun, accessibility, and collaboration are essential to developer learning β‘οΈ @github.com podcast episode with @cassidoo.co, @jason.energy, @abbycabs.dev, and Andrea youtu.be/YnqJOJ9FzvE?...
AI is full of opportunity β but βAI slopβ is real for open source maintainers.
In our chat with @vertedin.de (Electron), I loved this: use these moments to teach contributors β but never at the cost of maintainersβ time or energy.
Open source is as much about people as code.
π§ gh.io/podcast
Love this @gaprogman.com!
To officially submit this, you need to fill out this quick form -- I left it open for you gh.io/zerotomerged
My Demo Time #ZeroToMergedContest story!
Iβm a one-person dev teamβ¦ but with @github Copilot, Spark, and Actions, it feels like Iβve got a whole team behind me.
π Watch how I built Demo Time, a VS Code extension that makes live coding stress-free
#GitHub #VSCode #DevTools
I submitted this earlier today on behalf of the team at projectbluefin.io.
#ZeroToMergedContest
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEJ5...
My "Habit Sync for @todoist.com" app is about to get a significant update, so here are some "behind the scenes" of what it took.
- 9 major version upgrades of #ReactNative
- Writing my own component library
- Translating #Java to #Kotlin
@github.com #ZeroToMergedContest
My entry for #ZeroToMergedContest, which is about www.nuget.org/packages/Owa...
ever wonder about the story of nuxtbot, the helpful @github.com actions bot that reopens closed issues, asks for reproductions, and spots regressions?
#ZeroToMergedContest
I've recently took the time to read a blog post by @abbycabs.dev about who will maintain the future of open source (github.blog/open-source...)
1/π§΅
π
Can't wait!!
This is it! #ZeroToMergedContest closes TODAY
We know maintainers are doing incredible things with GitHub tools. Show us how GitHub helped you shorten the path from idea β impact.
2-min video, real stories, huge opportunity. Submit by end of day (anywhere on earth)! π β
I'm helping run #ZeroToMergedContest bc maintainer stories need to be heard. Every day you're navigating the impossible - shipping at speed while maintaining excellence.
I'll be watching every video! This could land you on the Universe keynote stage.
π gh.io/zerotomerged
Iβll be honest and say that the millennial in me has never understood Discord or been able to get embedded in a community there. But the research is pretty clear that gen z tends to gather there!
I know that both MozFest community and open source collective have moved to discord for some examples
Yes! We need to offer more support to keep newcomers contributing!
Blog: github.blog/open-source/...
Real talk: what's one tradition in open source that might be pushing away younger contributors?
...but we're wondering why they don't stick around in our projects?
Since June, so many of you started experimenting. Discord servers. Video docs. Purpose-first READMEs. This community continues to amaze me β¨
