Promotion — getting the word out

Audience: David, on the days before and after the public-preview tag. This is the full "how we tell people" playbook.

Companion: Launch.md is when you are allowed to speak (L1–L6, J3, the named public cut, star-hold). This file is how you speak, where, in what order, with what copy. Do not invent features here.

State correction (2026-08-28, at v315.0.0): several "not yet" notes below are stale. Shipped since this doc's 2026-08-25 snapshot: Slack + GitHub projectors (307–312, config-gated), durable mail retry (304–306), and the four SDKs published at 0.1.0 (294–299); MCP is 2026-07-28 (J3 done); the GitHub homepage + 10 topics are set (293); the README hero is the default-secure quickstart + maidan init, not cargo run+AUTH_DISABLED (313–314). So those are announceable as shipped (honestly: projectors/mail are config-gated). Still not shipped: hosted /play, hosted cloud. Canonical status is always Open Work.

Pickup: Handoff.md for product work. Open this page when the question is distribution.

Snapshot: 2026-08-25 (see the state correction above). Repo is david-engelmann/maidan (public, MIT, 4 stars). Docs currently publish at https://david-engelmann.github.io/maidan/ (book.toml site-url = "/maidan/"). The planned canonical public face is https://maidan.world — landing, docs hub, announce — but that domain is not registered/live yet (see §3 Cutover); until it is, github.io is the only live site. It must redirect before Show HN. GitHub profile david-engelmann has no blog or X linked. Star-hold (2026-08-24) stays until tag day.

1. The one rule

Promote once, on tag day, after Launch L1–L4 and Hardening J3 (MCP 2026-07-28) are true. Everything before that is prep: write the posts, stage the assets, do not publish.

A week of teaser GIFs, "coming soon" LinkedIn, or setting the GitHub homepage early is how you spend the launch before anyone can try it. The 2026-08-24 star-hold exists so the first impression is a working 10-minute path, not a capability list.

If J3 is not green, do not Show HN. Cursor/Claude bouncing on 2024-11-05 is a worse first comment than silence.

2. What you are actually promoting

Steal this line. Do not workshop a new product.

Self-hosted Slack-shaped workspace for AI agents. MCP, REST, WebSocket, and A2A. Postgres or SQLite. Written in Rust.

That is the README, the Show HN title body, the GitHub description, and the first sentence of every post. Same words everywhere.

Who it is for (say this):

• People writing multiple agents that need a shared workplace (threads, capabilities, claim_next_thread), not one tool call.
• Ops who will run a binary or compose on their own metal (Postgres + OIDC, or SQLite on a laptop / Pi).
• Cursor / Claude Desktop / MCP-client users after J3.

Who it is not for (say this too):

• People who want a Slack clone or a pretty SPA. /ui is an operator console.
• People who want GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or a coding agent that opens PRs. That is not this repo.
• People who want "the MCP protocol." That is Anthropic / AAIF.

Do not claim:

The honest differentiator, in one breath: durable shared state + capability tokens + four transports, you host it. Not chrome. Not a hosted SaaS. Not an in-process orchestrator (Crew.kickoff).

3. The home base is maidan.world (planned)

https://maidan.world will be the public product — once registered and HTTPS-green (see Cutover below); it is not live yet. Landing page, docs hub, and announce post are planned to live on that domain. GitHub is the source repo. github.io is plumbing. Nobody in a Show HN thread, LinkedIn unfurl, or Release note should see david-engelmann.github.io.

This is not encore. Cut over before tag day. A github.io URL on launch morning reads as a student Pages site, not a product.

Every channel points at maidan.world or the repo. Never Medium as the original. Never github.io once DNS is live. No second hostname for docs.

mdBook is not the website

mdBook is a book generator. The current site looks like a book because it is one: ayu theme, sidebar, site-url = "/maidan/", book/sync-docs.sh copying a curated SUMMARY onto GitHub Pages.

That is the right content pipeline for a vault. It is the wrong product site. Pointing github.io at maidan.world and leaving the book as the homepage still looks like a student Pages project with a nicer domain.

Keep: every page in docs/ (GitHub-native Markdown, already the source of truth). The generated MCP reference step. The link-check discipline.

Replace: book/ + mdBook as the public renderer. One site framework serves landing, docs, guides, and blog from that Markdown.

Recommended stack: Astro + Starlight. Landing and blog are ordinary Astro pages. Docs are Starlight, ingesting docs/*.md. One static build. Deploys to Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages on the maidan.world custom domain. Docusaurus is the fine React alternative; VitePress is the fine Vue one. Do not stand up Next.js for this. There is no app server.

Do not ship a SaaS marketing site (pricing tables, fake testimonials, "Get started free"). The landing is still one honest screen. Same claims as L4. The difference is it lives in the same chrome as the docs, not next door to an mdBook.

Site IA (one build)

maidan.world/                 landing
maidan.world/docs/            docs home (Integration first)
maidan.world/docs/quickstart  10-minute path
maidan.world/docs/deploy      compose / Helm / Pi
maidan.world/docs/protocols   MCP / A2A / REST
maidan.world/docs/providers   hosts
maidan.world/docs/mcp         generated tool reference
maidan.world/blog/            announce + later technical posts

Write in docs/ (and a thin www/ or site/ package for the landing/blog layout). Do not fork the prose into a second tree.

Cutover (week −2, not tag morning)

1. Buy maidan.world. WHOIS privacy. Cert + DNS need days.
2. DNS. Apex A/ANAME (Cloudflare flattening is the easy apex path) + www CNAME, both 301-canonical to https://maidan.world. HTTPS must show a real padlock.
3. Stand up the site package in-repo (www/ or site/): Starlight (or Docusaurus) pointed at docs/. Landing + one blog post. Generate the MCP reference into /docs/mcp the same way docs.yml does today.
4. Retire mdBook as the public host. Keep book/ around only until the new site is green, then stop deploying it. docs.yml builds the new site, not mdbook build.
5. Redirect github.io. david-engelmann.github.io/maidan/ 301s to https://maidan.world. Old book paths (/maidan/docs/Integration.html) should 301 into /docs/integration if you can map them; otherwise send them to /docs/.
6. Verify. curl -I https://maidan.world and https://maidan.world/docs/ are 200 over TLS. Phone. OG debugger. Click quickstart, Deploy, Protocols, MCP reference.

If the domain is not HTTPS-green, do not Show HN.

What the landing must have on tag day

1. The one-liner from §2.
2. Primary CTA: 10-minute path. Secondary: GitHub. L2. If the path is still cargo run + AUTH_DISABLED=1, fix it first (E2 + F4).
3. Honest limits in the first screen.
4. Nav: Docs, Quick start, Blog, GitHub.
5. OG image (1200×630) for the apex URL.

What docs must have on tag day

1. 10-minute path at /docs/quickstart (and linked from Integration).
2. Claims sheet on /blog/public-preview (L4).
3. No wikilinks. No github.io. No "this page is an mdBook."
4. The site build from main is what maidan.world serves. Merge before the tag.

Guides vs the launch post

Do not turn Integration into a blog. Do not turn the landing into a second README.

4. Assets to stage before tag day

Do this in the quiet week. Publish nothing.

You do need maidan.world live (landing + docs hub). You do not need: Product Hunt, a priced SaaS marketing site, a Discord, a newsletter, or a Twitter account. Those are encore if the 10-minute path actually gets used.

5. Channel playbooks

Post once per channel, then stop. A campaign looks like spam. The order is the strategy: maidan.world and GitHub must be right before anyone else sees a link.

5.1 GitHub — the product page

Engineers land here from HN. If the README still leads with cargo run + AUTH_DISABLED, the thread will.

On tag day, in this order:

1. Push the annotated tag (Operations.md). Wait for release.yml (binaries, images, cosign, SBOM).
2. Edit the GitHub Release: human title "Maidan public preview", 8–15 lines, link the 10-minute path and the announce page. Not a dump of PR titles (L3).
3. Set About: description, homepage URL https://maidan.world, topics.
4. README already merged: docker/binary first, honest MCP rev, "what Maidan is not," canonical link https://maidan.world (not github.io).

Do not open a Discussions "launch" the same morning. Issues stay the inbox. Pin one issue: "Public preview — start here" with the 10-minute path, if you want a single place for drive-by questions.

Watch the Release and ghcr pulls for the first hour. A broken image is a Show HN comment you cannot walk back.

5.2 maidan.world — the share URL

Preferred link for humans:

https://maidan.world

Docs they will actually read:

https://maidan.world/docs/

Show HN URL is https://maidan.world so the unfurl is the product, not a github.io project site. Put the GitHub repo and the 10-minute path in the first comment. Reddit r/selfhosted still wants compose in the post body (Deploy on the docs host).

Hug-of-death: Pages + the custom domain survive HN if DNS/TLS is already green. Your compose pulling ghcr is the thing that can fall over. The SQLite / binary path is the safety valve. Say that in the first comment. If maidan.world 404s or has a cert warning, you launched too early.

5.3 Show HN — the one shot

This is the only post that can put Maidan in front of tens of thousands of the right people in a morning. Treat every other channel as secondary.

If it is not on the front page in an hour, leave it. Do not delete and resubmit. Show HN resubmits get you hellbanned.

5.4 Reddit — the people who will actually run it

One post per sub, next 24 hours, after Show HN is up (so you can link the HN thread if someone asks "is this the HN thing?"). Read each sub's rules the night before. Self-promo rules are real.

Title style: informational, not launch-speak. [Release] Maidan – self-hosted workspace for AI agents (Rust, MCP, MIT)

Stay to reply for an hour on r/selfhosted. That crowd asks about Docker tags, backups, and whether you phone home. Answers: no phone-home, MIT, cosign, SQLite or Postgres, see Production.md.

Do not also post r/SideProject, r/opensource, r/programming, and r/artificial the same day. That is a campaign.

5.5 lobste.rs

Same day or next. Tags: programming, rust, ai (and release if they still use it). Do not double-post the same URL a week later. Cross-link HN in a comment if asked. Account age matters here more than on HN; if the account is new, skip rather than look like a dump.

5.6 LinkedIn — your professional network

LinkedIn will not discover Maidan for strangers. It tells people who already know David that this exists, which is how you get the first real users and the intros. Post once on tag day, after the GitHub Release is edited.

Do not: "I'm excited to share that I'm thrilled." Do not tag 30 people. Do not post the same text three days in a row. A follow-up a week later ("what I learned from the HN thread") is allowed if it is a new post with new content.

If you want a longer LinkedIn article, syndicate the announce page (see Medium). One or the other on tag day, not both plus Medium plus Dev.to as four originals.

5.7 Medium and Dev.to — syndicates, not the home

These are how search and "people who read on Medium" find you six weeks later. They are not the launch.

1. Publish the announce page on https://maidan.world first (blog path or docs chapter).
2. Cross-post to Dev.to (canonical URL / canonical_url front-matter pointing at the Pages URL).
3. Cross-post to Medium. Settings → canonical link to the same Pages URL so Google does not treat Medium as the original.
4. First paragraph + link is enough if you do not want to paste the whole essay. Full-text syndicate is fine if canonical is set.

Do not make Medium the only copy. Medium's paywall and layout changes are why the site is the source of truth.

HackerNoon is optional encore, same rule.

5.8 Bluesky / X / Mastodon

One post, same text, with the repo or announce URL. No thread of 14. No "1/n". If you do not already have an audience there, skip X. One Bluesky post from a personal account is enough.

5.9 Places to skip (for this cut)

6. Tag-week calendar (America/New_York)

Assume J3 + L1–L4 are done. If they are not, slide the week.

Week −2 (quiet)

• Buy/finish maidan.world. DNS + HTTPS for apex and www. Stand up the one-site package (landing + /docs + /blog). 301 github.io → maidan.world. Do not leave this for tag morning.
• Ship the landing (one screen, OG tags, CTA to /docs/quickstart
  • GitHub).
• Finish Hardening P0 that a stranger will trip on: E2 README, F4 default-secure compose, A5 tone, C5/J3 MCP copy.
• Draft the announce page (claims sheet = L4).
• Draft Show HN title + first comment, LinkedIn, Reddit titles. Park them in this file or a gist. Do not publish.
• Verify last existing tag's cosign so you know the release machine works (L5).

Week −1

• Bet 2 M.1 examples/ if you can; otherwise the first comment is REST + "MCP snippet after J3."
• Write L3 Release notes in a gist (paste-ready).
• Make the OG image (1200×630). Optional GIF of the 10-minute path, not of /ui unless that is all you have.
• Re-read Integration + Threat Model (Hardening DoD). Click every link the announce page uses.
• Create or warm the HN / lobste.rs / Reddit accounts if they are rusted. Do not post teaser content.

Tag day (pick a Tue/Wed/Thu)

Times are ET.

Do not start Slack or Git as a panic feature because a comment asked for it. File it as Bet 1 / Bet 6.

Tag +1 to +3

• Reply. Close or label drive-by issues. Fix docs if the 10-minute path bounced. Do not add a protocol.
• One optional "what the HN thread taught me" note on the site, not a second Show HN.

Tag +2 weeks

• If people tried it: Bet 2 M.2 (offline DAG hero) is the encore post.
• If they bounced: fix the path. The encore is a better README, not a new surface.
• One awesome-selfhosted or awesome-mcp PR, once, if the fit is honest.

Ongoing (monthly, not daily)

The spike dies in a week. What keeps a personal OSS project alive:

1. Release notes that a human can read on every interesting tag.
2. One technical post when you ship something real (MCP 2026, a projector, the DAG demo). Same syndicate pattern.
3. Answer issues in public like the Show HN first comment: short, technical, honest about "not yet."
4. LinkedIn only when there is a new artifact, not a vibe.

7. How the posts should feel

Write like the README, not like a launch deck.

• First person. "I built" / "I am the only maintainer."
• Specific. Name MCP, Postgres, SQLite, claim_next_thread, MIT.
• One limitation in the first screen. HN and r/selfhosted reward this.
• No "game-changer", "excited to announce", "the future of agents."
• Same facts on every channel. If LinkedIn says MCP 2026 and the README still says 2024, someone will screenshot it.

8. Copy bank (paste, then trim)

Replace <TAG> with the public-preview tag (v273.0.0 or whatever main is). Replace the MCP line if J3 has not landed — and if it has not, do not use this bank yet.

GitHub description

Self-hosted Slack-shaped workspace for AI agents (MCP, REST, WS, A2A)

GitHub Release (L3)

Maidan public preview (<TAG>)

Self-hosted Slack-shaped workspace for AI agents. MCP, REST,
WebSocket, and A2A. Postgres or SQLite. Rust. MIT.

This is a named public preview of a surface that already has
product gates (maidan-2.0 / agent-1.0 / operator-1.0 / scale-1.0).
It is not a crates.io 1.0 and not a Slack clone.

Try it: https://maidan.world (10-minute path)
Docs: https://maidan.world/docs/
Image: ghcr.io/david-engelmann/maidan-server:<TAG> (cosign + SBOM)

Shipped and honest: four transports, capability tokens, compose /
binary / Helm / Pi, Postgres or SQLite.

Not yet: Slack teammate, Git projector, TS/Python SDK, durable mail
retry. `/ui` is an operator console.

MCP speaks 2026-07-28 (stateless Streamable HTTP).

Show HN title

Show HN: Maidan – a self-hosted Slack-shaped workspace for AI agents

Show HN first comment

I built Maidan because I wanted several agents (and a human) to
share threads, capabilities, and a claimable work queue — not just
call tools in one process.

It is a Rust server you host. Slack-shaped model (workspaces,
channels, threads, DMs) over MCP, REST, WebSocket, and A2A. Postgres
or SQLite. MIT. Single binary or compose.

The interesting bits: capability-scoped tokens on every transport,
LSN-aware read replicas, a transactional outbox, claim_next_thread
as the agent work loop.

Honest limits: this is a public preview, not a 1.0. `/ui` is an
operator console, not a Slack replacement. There is no Slack or
GitHub teammate yet. You bring the LLM; Maidan is the workplace.

Site: https://maidan.world
Repo: https://github.com/david-engelmann/maidan
10-minute path: https://maidan.world/docs/quickstart

Happy to talk through the MCP surface, the replica routing, or why
I did not put an LLM in-process. What would make this useful in
your setup?

LinkedIn

I open-sourced Maidan: a self-hosted, Slack-shaped workspace for
AI agents.

You run it. Agents and humans share workspaces, channels, and
threads. It speaks MCP, REST, WebSocket, and A2A, with capability
tokens on every call. Rust. Postgres or SQLite. MIT.

I built it because "one agent, one context window" falls apart the
moment two agents have to hand work to each other.

Public preview — not a Slack clone, not Copilot, not a hosted
SaaS. Docs and a 10-minute path:

https://maidan.world
https://github.com/david-engelmann/maidan

#opensource #rustlang

r/selfhosted title + body

Title: Maidan – self-hosted collaboration workspace for AI agents (Rust, MIT)

Body:
Maidan is a single binary / compose server that gives AI agents
(and the humans watching them) a Slack-shaped workspace: channels,
threads, DMs, search, artifacts. You host it. No cloud account.

- Docker: ghcr.io/david-engelmann/maidan-server:<TAG>
- Or a static binary (incl. ARM64 / Pi)
- Postgres + S3-compatible for prod, SQLite for a laptop
- MCP / REST / WebSocket / A2A
- MIT, cosign-signed images, no phone-home

I am the only maintainer. Public preview.

Site: https://maidan.world
Docs (compose + deploy): https://maidan.world/docs/deploy
Repo: https://github.com/david-engelmann/maidan

r/rust title + body

Title: Maidan – Rust workspace server for multi-agent collaboration (MCP/REST/A2A)

Body:
Solo MIT project. One static binary, Postgres or SQLite (sqlx),
Axum, capability tokens, Prometheus/OTLP. Agents collaborate on
threads instead of stuffing one context window.

Repo: https://github.com/david-engelmann/maidan
I am around for questions on the crate layout, the replica LSN
routing, or the MCP server.

Medium / Dev.to intro (then paste the announce page)

Canonical URL: https://maidan.world/blog/public-preview

Maidan is a self-hosted Slack-shaped workspace for AI agents.
This post is the public-preview announce; the live docs and
quick start live at https://maidan.world/docs/.

9. What "worked" looks like

Do not optimize for stars. Four stars today is fine; a fake 500 is worse.

Ignore: impression counts, LinkedIn reactions, Medium claps.

If the path bounced, the encore is docs, not a new protocol (Launch week plan). If it did not bounce, the encore is M.2 (visible DAG) or the Slack/Git projector — product, not more posts.

10. Relationship to other docs

See also

• Launch.md
• Handoff.md
• Operations.md
• Product: https://maidan.world
• Docs: https://maidan.world/docs/
• Repo: https://github.com/david-engelmann/maidan