Summary

👨‍💻 Dev tutorials are broken.
They’re static, outdated, and hard to follow — especially in fast-moving ecosystems like Polkadot.

🔧 Meet Gitorial:
We’re building interactive, Git-powered tutorials you can follow&build step-by-step directly inside your VS Code

🌟 Built in collab with @ShawnTabrizi - and already live. 🌟
Try it here 👉 link

Detailed

Hi everyone,

Let’s face it—developer onboarding in the Polkadot ecosystem is challenging.

Tutorials are often static, outdated, and force constant context-switching between blog posts, GitHub, editors, and terminals. They’re hard to follow, harder to maintain — and in an ecosystem evolving as fast as Polkadot, that’s a real blocker.

Enter Gitorial: Git-Powered, Interactive Learning

We’re working with Shawn Tabrizi to bring Gitorial to life—a new protocol and toolset for creating step-by-step, interactive coding tutorials directly inside your Git workflow and IDE. Think of it as hands-on learning that lives where the code lives.

Although we’re focusing on Polkadot/Substrate for now, Gitorial is designed to work with any Git-based codebase or developer tutorial, across ecosystems and languages.

We’ve already shipped an early version of the Gitorial VS Code Extension (🧪 Try the Gitorial VS Code extension: link) and are building the wider Gitorial ecosystem in collaboration with Shawn, who originally designed the spec.

How Gitorial Works:

✅ Git-powered steps: Each tutorial step = a Git commit.
✅ VS Code integration: Browse steps, preview changes, (soon: test code).
✅ Versioned & maintainable: Tutorials can evolve like any other codebase.
✅ Specs + SDKs: We’re working on defining a shared protocol and reusable tooling.

Why It Matters for Polkadot

Gitorial can…

Drastically improve onboarding for Substrate and SDKs and help developers ramp up on other tracks too (like dApps and smart contracts)
Empower experienced devs to share deeper knowledge in a structured, testable, interactive and editable way
Create living tutorials that grow alongside the ecosystem

We’d Love Your Feedback on These Next Steps:

Spec Design:
- One main branch instead of multiple tutorial branches?
- Local test/validation capabilities?
- What do you want to see in the spec?
VS Code Plugin:
- Which features would make this truly useful for you?
Parsing Library (npm):
- Would you use Gitorial logic in other tools or platforms?
Curated Gitorial List

Which topics or repos deserve a Gitorial?

Funding Plan

We plan to apply for OpenGov funding—starting with a ~$4,400 proposal to retroactively cover PoC development, followed by a second round to support the MVP: including spec refinement, deeper editor integration, and documentation.

Tell Us What You Think

Do Gitorials solve a real pain point in Polkadot dev education?
Any concerns or edge cases you foresee?
Would you want to write one or use one?

All input is helpful—thanks for taking the time!

→ Try it out, explore the spec draft, or share your thoughts below.

🔗 Extension

🔗 Gitorial-SDK

Andrey Dodonov & Andrzej Sulkowski
Polkadot Blockchain Academy Graduates, Lucerne Cohort 🇨🇭