For posterity: Through a bit of engineering work and better anomaly management, I’ve been able to get the platform fee down to 5%! I’m quite proud of this as there’s a lot of moving parts. In time I’ll probably be able to get it lower too which makes me happy (says the guy that tried to give his first startup away for free). :tada:
Full details on the permissions we request from GitHub are present here: https://app.clevercrow.io/github-access. Regarding bank access, all financial transactions are handled by Stripe in an incredibly conventional manner. Additional details on that in the privacy doc: https://app.clevercrow.io/privacy
I've got a couple good docs in the footer of www.clevercrow.io that will answer the token stuff. GitHub app integration for all repo interaction. Yep, backers can target specific issues or entire repos, their choice.
I hear you. I'm trying to balance the needs of backers and builders and it's admittedly a tough one. 20% is too high and I'll be adjusting that. The numbers I'm getting from usage today are really helpful in calibrating, so I'm sure I can get something more balanced there.
My hope is that maintainers can offload some busy work to helpful agents and create a more connected community. Likewise, that people otherwise unable to afford the high end frontier models would get to use them for free. Also not something everyone wants, but I know some do. I really do appreciate your feedback and your passion.
100% expected, in fact, desired (maintainers should be/are in charge). My goal is to create enough surface area that backers see their tokens going to many of the things they care about, not necessarily all.
Well then, I'm hoping it's more of a San Junipero/Hang the DJ episode where good stuff happens by the end.
I think there's a trust continuum that culminates at giving money no strings attached, but it starts somewhere else. If my goal (as creator of CleverCrow) is to get more people to support maintainers, then I have to open the funnel wide and connect with where people start (transactionally, I'm assuming).
Probably an oversight on my part. I was thinking that backers would find out about CleverCrow through the project maintainers so the public pages are repo specific.
As an aside, when you do login, CleverCrow shows projects that you've starred on GitHub to help find things you might want to support.
While I definitely like the Patreon for Software Builders idea, that's got some moving pieces which take additional legal work. My hope is that could come in time as it would be really cool.
Regarding rewarding maintainer effort, I'm shooting for the value prop of "free AI", this only works if reconciliation is per-phase and liquidity is accessible across as many repos as possible. So if I had each reconcile drain the pool, there would be a lot of stalled work and human intervention required.
That said, there are probably some maintainers that don't want "free AI" and that's okay.
Yeah, rising token costs definitely played into my thinking too. I want builders to be able to use the best models and it seems like they are getting more expensive. But maybe local models will get there?
Howdy Solar_Fields, these are great questions and I can give you my thoughts on how I feel it's different than cash donations (which are great if you can get them!). I look at this less like patronage and more an exchange of a resource to meet the needs of both parties. I want to support the projects I care about, some I'll give carte blanche, but some I have no connection to and really just want a bug fixed. Rather than fire up my own Claude Code and throw a PR at that maintainer, instead I'm saying, "hey, you know this codebase and can use this resource (tokens) better than me, please fix it with 'free' tokens." The platform fee is really just for AWS costs and is based on modeling, but I'm sure that's not the final form. Does that make sense?
I'll be posting a Show HN soon, but the idea is to let the communities around GitHub repos fund the specific issues they care about while giving the maintainers of said repos agents of their choice to work on them (that they control entirely).
Yep. I agree. I’m assuming that the best model for coding is always six months advanced ahead for the investors. Even with that assumption, there’s a huge democratization effect.
I’ve never seen a tool more accessible for people of all backgrounds and abilities. It should be celebrated. And yet “engineers” are worried about their identities.
And yes, Greg was 100% about grappling with the nuances. One of the smartest men I’ve known.
We had an awesome book club talking about historical sci-fi and modernity. He always saw the optimistic side, how humanity could conquer, but I, child of Amazon, could see the end-stage capitalism.
Makes for fantastic dialogue. Read the book series. It’s worth it!
This sort of low effort post, we can all recognize right?
Read the book series. Battle with a culture different than your own. The absolute depression by the third book helps you experience this more than this bullshit Cliff’s notes.