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Workshop Content

BOLT prepares participants to lead open source software projects by building a personalized maintainer toolkit. By the end of the workshop, each participant walks away with a project-specific set of plans, templates, and guidelines they can use immediately to succeed as a Tech Lead or open source maintainer.

Workshop Themes​

The workshop is organized around ten themes, each building on the last. Sessions blend instruction, hands-on exercises, and project-specific work.

Introduction and Project Matching

Participants meet their assigned open source products, explore the repository, verify access, and define their maintainer role.

Artifacts: Project assignment record, project first impressions, maintainer role definition

Project Understanding and Vision

Develop a product vision, audit the developer experience, and explore architecture patterns. Begin drafting a Statement of Work for the first iteration.

Artifacts: Product vision statement, developer experience audit, architecture pattern documentation

Design and Planning

Practice elevator pitches, learn software design principles, and break down work from epics to well-formed issues. Build sprint planning frameworks.

Artifacts: Technical debt register, sprint planning framework, issue writing templates

Collaboration Foundations

Cover licensing and governance essentials, time management and boundaries, open collaboration practices, and building team agreements.

Artifacts: License and governance reference, personal capacity plan, code of conduct, team charter

Mentoring Foundations

Distinguish mentoring from managing and teaching. Practice code review as a teaching tool. Develop communication strategies for working with contributors at different skill levels.

Artifacts: Mentoring philosophy, code review guidelines, communication playbook

Building and Iteration Planning

Refine Statements of Work, finalize sprint plans, create tutorials, and document architecture decisions.

Artifacts: Refined SOW, sprint planning template, tutorial series outline, architecture decision records

Monitoring and Operations

Build issue triage workflows, set up project health monitoring, plan documentation maintenance, and document deployment and DevOps procedures.

Artifacts: Issue triage workflow, project health dashboard, documentation maintenance plan, deployment guide

Community and Communication

Map contributor journeys, write contribution guidelines, design communication platforms and practices, and build stakeholder management plans.

Artifacts: Community growth strategy, contribution guidelines, communication templates, stakeholder communication plan

Review and Risk Management

Design feedback systems, assess release readiness, develop security policies, and plan for project sustainability.

Artifacts: Feedback collection system, release readiness checklist, security policy, sustainability plan

Integration and Launch

Integrate all toolkit components, prepare for launch, and simulate the first week with a team.

Final deliverables: Complete maintainer toolkit, Statement of Work and team working agreement, team onboarding agenda, personal development goals

Independent Deep Dive​

Between workshop sessions, participants have a break period to work independently on their assigned projects. This time is used for comprehensive codebase study, stakeholder and client interviews, contributor onboarding materials, deployment and operations documentation, and preparing project pitch decks.

The Participant Playbook​

Workshop participants receive the BOLT Participant Playbook, a comprehensive reference covering:

  • Maintainer roles and responsibilities
  • Essential tooling and setup
  • Design, planning, and iteration management
  • Collaboration, licensing, and governance
  • Mentoring and leadership
  • Community management and communication
  • Quality, security, and monitoring
  • Templates and checklists for common maintainer tasks

The playbook serves as an ongoing reference throughout the semester, not just during the workshop.