14 SECTION ✣
Glossary.
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.
OVERVIEW
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 ./03-frameworks/aaarrrp.md.
Activation. When a developer successfully uses the product (not just signs up). The most leverage-able point in a PLG funnel. See ./04-metrics/activation-metrics.md.
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 ./02-foundations/disciplines.md.
Agent Experience (AX). The experience AI agents have when interacting with APIs, docs, and developer-facing surfaces. Emerging as a deliberate design surface 2024–2026. See ./11-trends/ai-and-llms.md.
Ambassador. Member of a structured external-community recognition program (HashiCorp Ambassadors, Snyk Ambassadors, etc.). See ./10-tactics/ambassador-programs.md.
AT Protocol. The open protocol underlying Bluesky. Enables federated and portable identity. See ./09-platforms/bluesky-mastodon-threads.md.
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 ./03-frameworks/maturity-model.md.
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 ./02-foundations/disciplines.md.
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 ./11-trends/devex-movement.md.
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 ./10-tactics/documentation-as-product.md.
DXI. Developer Experience Index. Composite measure of developer experience, based on 14 survey items, by getdx.com. See ./03-frameworks/space-and-dxi.md.
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, 1990s–2010s.
DQL. Developer-Qualified Lead. A DevRel-vocabulary parallel to MQL/SQL, introduced by Mary Thengvall in 2019. An external person who can contribute value beyond 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 (Mastodon, Bluesky, email). Significant for the post-2022 developer-social-platform landscape.
Four Pillars. Lewko & Parton’s framework: Developer Education, Developer Marketing, Developer Success, Developer Programs. See ./03-frameworks/four-pillars.md.
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. The platform engineering–owned platform that internal developers use; 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 ./04-metrics/metrics-overview.md.
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 ./11-trends/ai-and-llms.md.
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 flagship recognition program for external community experts; established 1999.
N
NPS. Net Promoter Score. “How likely are you to recommend this to a peer?” 0–10 scale. Calculated as % promoters (9–10) – % detractors (0–6).
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 ./03-frameworks/orbit-model.md.
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 ./11-trends/plg-and-devrel.md.
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, deliberately-designed first-five-minutes experience. The most leverage-able doc page on most developer-product sites.
R
Reach (Orbit Model). The size of a community member’s network outside the immediate community.
Reciprocity. The principle that every interaction with a community member should create value for them. Non-negotiable to avoid extraction patterns.
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 ./09-platforms/hacker-news.md.
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 ./03-frameworks/space-and-dxi.md.
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.” The most important onboarding metric for developer products. See ./04-metrics/activation-metrics.md.
Twelve-Factor App. Methodology for cloud-native application design, published by Adam Wiggins (Heroku) in 2011.
V
Vanity metric. A metric that looks like it tells you something but doesn’t connect to business outcomes. GitHub stars, follower counts, raw page views, generic event-attendance numbers. See ./04-metrics/vanity-metrics.md.
W
WebContainers. StackBlitz’s WebAssembly-based technology that runs entire Node.js / npm environments in the browser.
See also
- The full almanac index:
../DEVREL.md.