A reference for the terminology that recurs across this almanac and across the field. Cross-linked to the files where each concept gets full treatment.
A
AAARRRP. Phil Leggetter’s strategy framework: Awareness, Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue, Product. See AAARRRP framework.
Activation. When a developer successfully uses the product after signing up. A key conversion point in a PLG funnel. See Activation metrics.
Activation rate. Percentage of new signups who reach a defined activation milestone within a defined window.
Advocate (Developer Advocate). Public-facing technical role with bidirectional duty: representing the developer community internally, and representing the product externally. See DevRel disciplines.
Agent Experience (AX). The experience AI agents have when interacting with APIs, docs, and developer-facing surfaces. Emerging as a deliberate design surface 2024 to 2026. See AI and LLMs in DevRel.
Ambassador. Member of a structured external-community recognition program (HashiCorp Ambassadors, Snyk Ambassadors, etc.). See Ambassador programs.
AT Protocol. The open protocol underlying Bluesky. Enables federated and portable identity. See Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads.
Awesome list. A community-curated GitHub repository in the form “awesome-X”: a discovery surface for tools, libraries, and content in a particular domain.
B
B2D. Business-to-Developer. Marketing whose audience is developers.
BANT. Budget, Authority, Need, Timing: a sales-qualification framework that does not translate well to developer audiences and is generally avoided in developer marketing.
C
CDRO. Chief Developer Relations Officer. Rare title; signals C-suite-level commitment to the function.
Champion. Member of a recognition program (MongoDB Champions, IBM Champions, Salesforce Trailblazer, etc.). Functionally similar to “Ambassador” or “Hero.”
CMM (DevRel CMM). DevRel Capability Maturity Model. Five-level model from disorganised-but-enthusiastic to demonstrated-business-value. See DevRel maturity model.
Community Manager. Operates the spaces where the developer community gathers; complementary to but distinct from Developer Advocate.
Conversion (developer-product context). Movement from free-tier user to paid customer in a PLG motion.
D
DA / Dev Advocate. Common abbreviations for Developer Advocate.
Devangelist. Informal portmanteau of developer + evangelist. Rarely used as a formal title.
Developer Education (DevEd). Discipline focused on producing the documentation, tutorials, courses, and curricula that take a developer from novice to expert with a product.
Developer Evangelist. Older term for Developer Advocate, often with a more outbound/promotional connotation. See DevRel disciplines.
Developer Experience (DX / DevEx). The end-to-end experience a developer has with a product. May be owned by DevRel, product, or a dedicated DX team. See Developer experience.
Developer Marketer / Developer Marketing. Marketing whose audience is developers; respects technical norms.
Developer Programs. Structured initiatives that recognise and equip the most engaged external community members.
Developer Relations Engineer. A Developer Advocate role positioned with engineering-organisation credibility, often reporting through engineering rather than marketing.
Developer Success / Enablement. The function ensuring developers who try the product actually ship with it.
Diátaxis. Daniele Procida’s documentation framework distinguishing Tutorials, How-to guides, Reference, and Explanation. See Documentation as product.
DXI. Developer Experience Index. Composite measure of developer experience, based on 14 survey items, by getdx.com. See DevEx measurement frameworks.
DORA. Deployment Frequency, Lead Time, Change Failure Rate, Mean Time to Restore. The four key software-delivery metrics from Forsgren’s Accelerate.
DPE. Developer & Platform Evangelism. Microsoft’s historical DevRel organisation from the 1990s through the 2010s.
DQL. DevRel Qualified Lead. Mary Thengvall’s term for an external person who contributes value to a developer community or programme beyond being a sales prospect.
DRP. Developer Relations Professional. Sometimes used as a generic abbreviation.
DX Core 4. DX’s unified framework combining DORA, SPACE, and DXI into four dimensions: Speed, Effectiveness, Quality, Impact.
E
Evangelist. See Developer Evangelist.
F
Federation. A protocol-level design where independently operated servers interoperate, as in Mastodon, Bluesky, and email.
Four Pillars. Lewko & Parton’s framework: Developer Education, Developer Marketing, Developer Success, Developer Programs. See Four pillars framework.
Funnel. The stages a developer moves through from awareness to paid customer.
G
GDE. Google Developer Expert. Selective recognition program.
GDG. Google Developer Group. Locally led developer community organisations.
Gravity (Orbit Model). Gravity = Love × Reach. The pull a community member has toward the centre of the community.
H
Hero (AWS Hero). Member of AWS’s selective community-expert recognition program.
HUG. HashiCorp User Group.
I
ICP. Ideal Customer Profile. Common marketing/sales term; relevant when DevRel work is being targeted.
IDP. Internal Developer Platform. A platform owned by platform engineering and used by internal developers; distinct from external developer products.
J
JUG. Java User Group.
L
Layer 1 / 2 / 3 metrics. Used in this almanac to refer to Program metrics / Community metrics / Activity metrics, respectively. See DevRel metrics.
Lobste.rs. Smaller, invite-only alternative to Hacker News.
Love (Orbit Model). The degree of engagement and commitment a community member has, scored from their activity.
M
MAU / WAU / DAU. Monthly / Weekly / Daily Active Users. Standard product-analytics metrics; in DevRel context applied to community channels as well as products.
MCP. Model Context Protocol. Open standard launched by Anthropic in November 2024 for connecting AI systems to external applications. Cross-vendor support. See AI and LLMs in DevRel.
MQL / SQL. Marketing Qualified Lead / Sales Qualified Lead. Standard sales-funnel vocabulary; DQL is the DevRel-vocabulary parallel.
MVP (Microsoft). Most Valuable Professional. Microsoft’s recognition program for external community experts.
N
NPS. Net Promoter Score. “How likely are you to recommend this to a peer?” 0 to 10 scale. Calculated as the percentage of promoters (9 to 10) minus the percentage of detractors (0 to 6).
O
OpenAPI. Standard for describing HTTP APIs; underpins most modern API-reference-docs generators.
Orbit Model. A community-management framework based on Gravity = Love × Reach. See Orbit Model.
OSPO. Open Source Program Office. Function inside a company that coordinates open-source contribution and policy.
P
Pirate Metrics (AARRR). Dave McClure’s original metrics framework: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue. AAARRRP is the DevRel adaptation.
PLG. Product-Led Growth. Go-to-market motion where the product itself drives acquisition, expansion, and retention. See Product-led DevRel.
PLG hybrid. Combination of product-led-growth at the bottom of the funnel and sales-led motion for enterprise expansion. Common at companies like Stripe, MongoDB, HashiCorp.
PR (Pull Request). Standard GitHub workflow; for DevRel, often a contribution signal.
Q
Quickstart. A short guide intended to take a developer from arrival to a first working result.
R
Reach (Orbit Model). The size of a community member’s network outside the immediate community.
Reciprocity. The principle that community work should create value for participants rather than treating their attention and labour as resources to extract.
S
Sandbox. A browser-based code execution environment (CodeSandbox, StackBlitz, Replit, CodePen, Glitch).
SDK. Software Development Kit. The libraries a developer installs to use your product.
Show HN. A specific category of Hacker News submission for self-built launches. See Hacker News.
SLA. Service-Level Agreement. Used metaphorically in community contexts (“first-response SLA in our Discord”).
SLO. Service-Level Objective. Same.
SPACE. Microsoft / GitHub Next’s developer productivity framework: Satisfaction, Performance, Activity, Communication, Efficiency. See DevEx measurement frameworks.
T
Technical Evangelist. Outbound-oriented variant of Developer Advocate; older terminology.
TTFHW. Time to First Hello World. Elapsed time from “developer arrives” to “developer has working code with output.” A useful onboarding metric for developer products. See Activation metrics.
Twelve-Factor App. Methodology for cloud-native application design, published by Adam Wiggins (Heroku) in 2011.
V
Vanity metric. A metric reported without a demonstrated connection to the objective being measured. Examples can include GitHub stars, follower counts, raw page views, and undifferentiated event-attendance numbers. See Vanity metrics.
W
WebContainers. StackBlitz’s WebAssembly-based technology that runs entire Node.js / npm environments in the browser.