# Meeting Minutes - April 08, 2026 ## Attendees: | Name | Attendance | Role/COI | | ------------------------ | ---------- | ---------------------------- | | Georg Link | No | OSC Chair | | Terence ‘Tex’ McCutcheon | Yes | Lead/Secretary | | Kyle Solomon | No | CPC Vice Chair | | Bora Oben | Yes | Developer Advocate - CF | | Dan Baruka | Yes | Developer Advocate Intersect | | Emmanuel Titi | Yes | Developer Advocate Intersect | | Harun Mwangi | Yes | Developer Advocate Intersect | | Uche Obasi | No | Developer Advocate Intersect | | Sebastian Pabon | Yes | OSC Member | | Darlisa Consoni | No | Ecosystem Engineering - CF | | Robertino Martinez | Yes | Product Owner - DevEx IOG | Community/Other Attendees * Bernard Sibanda * Josefine Birkigt **Recording:** [Cardano Developer Experience Innovation WG - 2026/04/08 - Recording](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wVI4zLiujWvhRVXC-roqGymNZLKc93CU/view?usp=sharing) **Transcript:** [Cardano Developer Experience Innovation WG - 2026/04/08 - Transcript](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fLfAAd7lgmcFmLS3iHEJlIsmGaFuedcdtp2-kAyZuXQ/edit?usp=sharing) **Chat Transcript:** [DevEx Innovation WG Meeting – 2026/04/08 – Chat Transcript](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hix_hbNl4TJc6ZxVeGOOYcBVePeNrFnS/view?usp=sharing) ## Agenda 4.08.26 * Continued Discussion ## Decisions/Actions **Decisions** * **Standardized Tech Stack for Onboarding:** The group reached a consensus to use an opinionated, "standard" tech stack for the initial developer curriculum to simplify onboarding. This includes Aiken for smart contracts, Mesh (or potentially a popular client SDK) for the frontend/off-chain, and Yaci DevKit for local development. * **Target Audience Focus:** It was decided that the upcoming curriculum should focus on professional developer teams (e.g., those porting from other networks) rather than just casual hackathon participants. * **Developer Portal Workflow:** It was confirmed that the "Developer Portal" remains the canonical source of truth. Contributors must fork the repository and submit PRs to a staging branch for weekly review before moving to production. * **Entry Point Philosophy:** The group decided that while they will recommend a default toolset (Aiken/Mesh), they will aim to keep the high-level conceptual explanations "tooling agnostic" so as not to alienate developers using other languages like Python. **Actions** * Bora: Finalize the theoretical "crash course" curriculum (estimated at 8–9 hours) and share it with the DevX working group for review before proposing it formally within the Cardano Foundation. * Bora: Create a project board (or issues) on the Developer Portal to track the technical tasks discussed, such as the sandbox environment and CLI tools. * Bora: Work on a "Dev Container" or template repository (likely using Yaci and Mesh) that allows users to spin up a Cardano development environment with one click via GitHub Codespaces. * Robertino: Continue refining the open-source strategy for a cardano-init CLI tool that scaffolds projects based on user preferences. * **Robertino:** Investigate the feasibility of a "Can I Use" style status page for Cardano tooling to track feature parity across different SDKs. * **Terence:** Coordinate with the Developer Advocates to ensure the DevX working group plans for Q2 are aligned with the new curriculum and portal updates. * **Dan:** Update the "Developer Pathway" PR on the Developer Portal once the curriculum structure is finalized so the diagram can be accurately linked. | Topic | Discussion | Notes | | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Builder Fest Locations | The group discussed rumors regarding the next Builder Fest location, specifically mentioning Japan and Africa as potential candidates. | Robertino noted Africa’s high potential due to a hungry, young developer population. | | Africa Developer Potential | Robertino shared experiences teaching in Kenya; Bora emphasized targeting the region with ads for upcoming hackathons due to high crypto awareness. | Focus on regions where users face high peer-to-payment friction. | | CF Developer Pipeline | Bora is defining a full pipeline at the Cardano Foundation (CF) to move developers from hackathons to the Cardano Accelerator program. | Goal: Provide business services, financial counsel, and VC connections. | | Onboarding Curriculum | Bora is developing a "crash course" curriculum (8-9 hours) to reduce professional onboarding time from weeks to days. | Designed for professional teams rather than casual hobbyists. | | Developer Portal PRs | Dan and Bora discussed a pending Pull Request (PR) for a "Developer Pathway" mermaid diagram on the landing page. | PR is on hold until the curriculum is ready to be linked to the pathway. | | Staging Workflow | Bora explained the standard workflow: contributors should fork the repo, submit PRs to staging, and updates move to production weekly. | Recommended using screenshots for quick feedback before formal staging. | | DevX Working Group Q2 | Terence suggested aligning the developer advocates' efforts with Bora’s coursework to avoid duplicated work in Q2. | Focus on "look and feel" consistency across different programs. | | Standardized Tech Stack | Bora proposed a recommended (opinionated) stack: Aiken (on-chain), Mesh/Lucid (off-chain), and Yaci DevKit (local testing). | Standardization is intended to simplify the entry point for newcomers. | | Online Playgrounds | Discussion on using GitHub Workspaces, Gitpod, or Demeter to provide one-click developer environments without local installation. | Demeter is reportedly winding down some services, making it a risky dependency. | | The "Remix" Comparison | Bernard highlighted the success of Ethereum’s Remix IDE, noting that Cardano lacks a similarly easy, browser-based "plug and play" tool. | Cardano’s architecture (EUTXO) makes browser-based node interaction more complex. | | Tooling Agnosticism | Robertino and Bernard argued for respecting developer choice (Python, etc.), while Bora pushed for a "pragmatic" default to ensure things actually get built. | A compromise was suggested: a default "Aiken/Mesh" path with options to swap. | | Maintenance & Resources | Bora questioned who would actually build and maintain these tools (e.g., a CLI or Playground) as the current group lacks a dedicated engineering team. | Developer Advocates (Emmanuel/Harun) currently handle technical tasks but have limited mandates. | | Incentive Alignment | Robertino suggested a "Can I Use" style site for Cardano tools to show which features work across different SDKs. | This would incentivize SDK maintainers to fix "red" (broken) features to stay competitive. | | CLI Scaffolding | Robertino plans to build a cardano-init CLI tool to scaffold projects based on user-selected languages if funding is secured. | Aiming for a "one command" setup to lower the barrier to entry. | --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. 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