Summary

👨‍💻 Dev tutorials are broken.
They’re static, outdated, and hard to follow — especially in fast-moving ecosystems like Polkadot.

🔧 Meet Gitorial:
We’re building interactive, Git-powered tutorials you can follow&build step-by-step directly inside your VS Code

🌟 Built in collab with @ShawnTabrizi - and already live. 🌟
Try it here 👉 link

Detailed

Hi everyone,

Let’s face it—developer onboarding in the Polkadot ecosystem is challenging.

Tutorials are often static, outdated, and force constant context-switching between blog posts, GitHub, editors, and terminals. They’re hard to follow, harder to maintain — and in an ecosystem evolving as fast as Polkadot, that’s a real blocker.

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Enter Gitorial: Git-Powered, Interactive Learning

We’re working with Shawn Tabrizi to bring Gitorial to life—a new protocol and toolset for creating step-by-step, interactive coding tutorials directly inside your Git workflow and IDE. Think of it as hands-on learning that lives where the code lives.

Although we’re focusing on Polkadot/Substrate for now, Gitorial is designed to work with any Git-based codebase or developer tutorial, across ecosystems and languages.

We’ve already shipped an early version of the Gitorial VS Code Extension (🧪 Try the Gitorial VS Code extension: link) and are building the wider Gitorial ecosystem in collaboration with Shawn, who originally designed the spec.

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How Gitorial Works:

• ✅ Git-powered steps: Each tutorial step = a Git commit.
• ✅ VS Code integration: Browse steps, preview changes, (soon: test code).
• ✅ Versioned & maintainable: Tutorials can evolve like any other codebase.
• ✅ Specs + SDKs: We’re working on defining a shared protocol and reusable tooling.

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Why It Matters for Polkadot

Gitorial can…

• Drastically improve onboarding for Substrate and SDKs and help developers ramp up on other tracks too (like dApps and smart contracts)
• Empower experienced devs to share deeper knowledge in a structured, testable, interactive and editable way
• Create living tutorials that grow alongside the ecosystem

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We’d Love Your Feedback on These Next Steps:

1. Spec Design:
   • One main branch instead of multiple tutorial branches?
   • Local test/validation capabilities?
   • What do you want to see in the spec?
2. VS Code Plugin:
   • Which features would make this truly useful for you?
3. Parsing Library (npm):
   • Would you use Gitorial logic in other tools or platforms?
4. Curated Gitorial List

• Which topics or repos deserve a Gitorial?

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Funding Plan

We plan to apply for OpenGov funding—starting with a ~$4,400 proposal to retroactively cover PoC development, followed by a second round to support the MVP: including spec refinement, deeper editor integration, and documentation.

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Tell Us What You Think

• Do Gitorials solve a real pain point in Polkadot dev education?
• Any concerns or edge cases you foresee?
• Would you want to write one or use one?

All input is helpful—thanks for taking the time!

→ Try it out, explore the spec draft, or share your thoughts below.

🔗 Extension

🔗 Gitorial-SDK

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Andrey Dodonov & Andrzej Sulkowski
Polkadot Blockchain Academy Graduates, Lucerne Cohort 🇨🇭