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Feedback Wanted: Gitorial - Interactive Git-Powered Tutorials for Polkadot & Beyond!

Andrzej
5 days ago
ecosystem
growth
community
adoption

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They’re static, outdated, and hard to follow — especially in fast-moving ecosystems like Polkadot.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

VS Code Extension Showcase

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Tutorials are often static, outdated, and force constant context-switching between blog posts, GitHub, editors, and terminals.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:

  1. Spec Design:
    • One main branch instead of multiple tutorial branches?
    • Local test/validation capabilities?
    • What do you want to see in the spec?
  2. VS Code Plugin:
    • Which features would make this truly useful for you?
  3. Parsing Library (npm):
    • Would you use Gitorial logic in other tools or platforms?
  4. 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 🇨🇭

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