Meeting Minutes - March 18, 2026

Attendees:

Name	Attendance	Role/COI
Georg Link	No	OSC Chair
Terence ‘Tex’ McCutcheon	Yes	Lead/Secretary
Kyle Solomon	Yes	CPC Vice Chair
Bora Oben	No	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

• Bevan Mauya

• Musa Ridwan Itopa

• Samuel Leathers

• Tommy Kammerer

Recording: Cardano Developer Experience Innovation WG - 2026/03/18 - Recording

Transcript: Cardano Developer Experience Innovation WG - 2026/03/18 - Transcript

Chat Transcript: DevEx Innovation WG Meeting – 2026/03/18 – Chat Transcript

Agenda 3.18.26

• Developer Onboarding Breakdown

Decisions/Actions

Decisions

• Focus on Developer Portal: A general consensus was reached to prioritize work and resources on developers.cardano.org to combat resource fragmentation.

• Target Audience Definition: The group agreed that the primary target audience for current onboarding efforts is developers who are new to Cardano but want to build functional DApps.

• Onboarding Baseline: Defined the onboarding "success" point as a developer being able to understand the UTXO model, write/sign a contract, serialize it, and connect it to a frontend.

• Documentation Philosophy: Agreed that high-level "how-to" documentation should be centralized (likely on the developer portal), while low-level technical documentation (like Haddock) should remain close to the code repositories and be auto-updated.

• Bifurcated Funnels: Acknowledged the need for two distinct paths: one for Core Tech contributors (maintaining the node/ledger) and one for DApp developers (using high-level tools like Mesh or Aiken).

Actions

• Resource Mapping (Terence): Start an issue thread or discussion on the developer portal to begin collecting and cataloging all existing high-level documentation resources.

• Bora’s Documentation (Bora/Tommy): Document the specific decisions and current state of progress made in previous sessions (Tommy filling in for Bora).

• Repo Issues (Robertino/Everyone): Create a series of issues in Oven’s repository to translate the current Miro board brainstorms into actionable tasks.

• Educational Asset Review (Terence): Continue testing and exploring how to host the former Emergo Academy source files, potentially using the Andamio platform.

• Internal Consolidation Talk (Robertino): Speak internally at IO to see if specific core tech documentation can be transferred or consolidated under Intersect to reduce "subdomain bloat."

• Agenda for Next Week (Group): Map out the known resources collected from the new issue thread to identify exactly what needs to be "corralled" and consolidated.

Topic	Discussion	Notes
Project Focus	Terence summarized the consensus from previous weeks: the primary focus is now on developers.cardano.org to address resource fragmentation.	Strategy is shifting toward centralized documentation.
Developer Onboarding	The group discussed what "onboarding" actually means. Robertino defined the baseline as a developer being able to build a simple DApp (contracts, transactions, and frontend).	Agreement that onboarding depends on the developer's background (Web2 vs. Web3).
Infrastructure Barriers	Robertino argued that managing a Cardano node isn't strictly necessary for onboarding, as devs can use intermediate interfaces like Blockfrost.	Goal is to lower the barrier to entry for initial building.
Marketing & Retention	Kyle suggested using retargeting tags on documentation. If a developer visits and leaves, marketing spend can trigger ads to bring them back into the funnel.	Aim is to treat the developer portal as a conversion funnel.
Advocate Experience	Harun and Dan shared insights from the last six months. A major hurdle is the "path to opportunity"—showing devs how to go from learning to earning/contributing.	Fragmented and outdated docs remain a significant blocker.
"Five-Minute" Success	Sebastian emphasized the need for a "5-minute build" experience. Developers need immediate "hits of happiness" to stay engaged with the complex Cardano stack.	Immediate feedback loops are key to retention.
Hello World Tutorials	Kyle and Dan proposed creating 3-5 distinct "Hello World" paths (e.g., submitting a transaction vs. minting an asset) to cater to different developer interests.	Provide multiple entry points to the ecosystem.
Smart Contract Simulation	Samuel noted a major ecosystem failure: the lack of an easy environment to simulate smart contracts without a full node or advanced Haskell knowledge.	Need for a "Plutus Development Platform" or sandbox.
Intersect's Scope	Terence clarified that Intersect (via Developer Advocates) acts as a steward for core repositories. Funding for new tooling may come through the Tooling Sustainability Program.	Distinction made between documentation work and tool development.
Educational Resources	Harun mentioned the now-closed Emergo Academy. Terence confirmed he has the source files and is exploring hosting them via the Andamio platform for Intersect members.	Potential for a token-based "certificate of completion" for learners.
Core vs. DApp Funnels	Robertino suggested splitting onboarding into two paths: one for Core Tech contributors (node, ledger) and one for DApp developers (Mesh, Aiken).	Profiles and skill sets for these two groups are vastly different.
Documentation Hierarchy	The group discussed a three-tier doc structure: Beginner (high-level), Intermediate (how-to guides), and Top-level (auto-generated API/Haddock docs).	High-level docs should be centralized; low-level docs stay near the code.
Consolidation Strategy	Robertino proposed consolidating various IO and Intersect subdomains into a single "Core Tech" documentation cluster to reduce confusion.	Goal: A "single source of truth" for core contributors.
Action Items	Terence suggested starting an issue thread/discussion on the developer portal to collect and map all existing high-level resources.	The next meeting will focus on mapping these resources.