VouchNet should earn activity through useful public work—not simulated members, invented engagement, or misleading "official" entities. This playbook prepares the product for its first cohort while keeping that boundary intact.
Unauthenticated visitors can discover real, indexable content at:
/vouch/[username]for public professional profiles/projects/[slug]for public, owner-published projects/company/[slug]for source-reviewed organization records/companiesfor the public organization directory/jobsfor source-linked roles with visible numeric salary ranges
Profiles and projects expose copyable SVG badge URLs. Members can embed the corresponding Markdown in a repository README or personal site, creating an attributable referral path back to their public VouchNet work.
The public /games route provides one reviewed, three-minute technical challenge for the current
day. It is explicitly published by the VouchNet system actor and has no artificial player count,
streak, or fabricated social activity. A scheduled editorial workflow is still required to publish
subsequent days.
The initial directory contains only structural, publicly sourced records:
- organization records are labelled Source reviewed, never "verified," unless ownership is later confirmed through an organization-verification flow;
- job records link to their original external listing, retain compensation metadata, and state that availability may change at the source;
- no user profile, relationship, reaction, application, or post is fabricated to make the network appear active.
The three remaining foundational posts must be published by a real, verified founder account through the normal post flow. This preserves a clear human author, an audit trail, and the same visibility rules applied to every other participant.
Start with open-source CLI builders: maintainers and contributors building developer-facing command-line software. It is narrow enough for work to overlap, broad enough to support projects, technical job listings, and evidence-based discussions.
The first cohort should be 30–50 people who already recognize one another's work. Do not optimize for sign-up volume. A small group that can genuinely review a project, make an introduction, or respond to a technical breakdown is more valuable than an unrelated audience.
- Invite only people the founder can contact legitimately; do not automate invitations or use scraped contact details.
- Offer a 15-minute setup session to help each early member add a public profile, one project, a repository/live link, and a badge.
- Ask each participant to publish one short technical breakdown in their own voice. AI may help draft it, but the member must review and publish it.
- Highlight useful work with attributable comments and proof-based verification, never generic engagement prompts.
- Review onboarding friction weekly: completion, first project, first post, and public badge installation are useful indicators. Do not use hidden engagement metrics or fake activity.
Before inviting the cohort, confirm:
- Public profile, project, company, and job URLs render while signed out and have accurate SEO metadata.
- Public directory records retain their source links and source-review disclaimer.
- The badge URLs return SVG without exposing personal data beyond the selected public profile or project information.
- A real founder account is selected for the initial technical posts; no account is impersonated.
- A reviewed next-day challenge is scheduled before the current one expires.
- Sign-up, verification email, sign-in, public-project creation, and badge copying work in the deployed environment.
VouchNet does not send outreach, post on behalf of a founder, create applicant accounts, or manufacture engagement. Those are human operations that require a legitimate, attributable participant and an explicit decision by the account owner.