ANSAI Phase 1 Launch Strategy¶

Mission: 0 → 100 Builders¶

Goal: Establish ANSAI as the creative platform for infrastructure automation

Think: Minecraft for DevOps, Lego for Infrastructure - Not "use our features" → "build what YOU need" - Not "ship features" → "provide building blocks" - Not "get users" → "inspire builders" - Not "feature requests" → "show & tell"

Success Metrics: - 🎯 50+ GitHub stars (platform adopters) - 🎯 10+ community creations shared (Show & Tell) - 🎯 5+ active builders contributing patterns - 🎯 100+ community members - 🎯 20+ production deployments with custom builds

Week-by-Week Plan¶

Week 1-2: Launch & Initial Outreach¶

Day 1-2: Community Infrastructure¶

✅ GitHub repository published
✅ Phase 1 released (Infrastructure Resilience blocks)
✅ Documentation complete
✅ README repositioned as creative platform
✅ CONTRIBUTING.md emphasizes "share your creations"
Set up GitHub Discussions
Show & Tell (MOST IMPORTANT - community creations)
Ideas (building blocks people need)
Q&A (help builders succeed)
General
Announcements
Add issue templates (issues, ideas, questions)
Set up GitHub Projects for "Building Blocks Roadmap"
Configure GitHub Actions badges

Day 3-4: Launch Content¶

Hacker News Post "Show HN: ANSAI – Self-Healing Infrastructure with Ansible"
Write compelling description
Prepare for comments/questions
Monitor first 24 hours actively
Reddit Posts
r/ansible: "Released ANSAI v1.0: Self-Healing Infrastructure Framework"
r/devops: "Show: Open-source self-healing automation (Ansible-based)"
r/selfhosted: "ANSAI - Self-healing for your homelab/server"
r/sysadmin: "Automate service healing with ANSAI"
Dev.to Article: "Building Self-Healing Infrastructure: ANSAI v1.0"
Twitter/X Thread: Feature highlights, architecture, getting started

Day 5-7: Direct Outreach¶

Reach out to 10 potential early adopters
Personal contacts
Previous colleagues
DevOps communities members
Post in relevant Slack/Discord communities
Ansible Community Slack
DevOps Slack groups
r/homelab Discord
Comment on related GitHub issues/discussions
Self-healing topics
Ansible automation questions
Service reliability threads

Week 3-4: Listen & Inspire¶

Goal: Learn what builders are trying to create, provide the blocks they need

Philosophy: Let builders tell us what they need through Show & Tell and discussions

Week 3: Community Listening & First Builds¶

Monitor Show & Tell: What are people building?
Identify patterns: Common problems builders are solving
Document creative uses: "10 Things People Built with ANSAI"
Identify missing blocks: What stops builders from succeeding?
Quick wins: Add 1-2 commonly requested building blocks
Based on ACTUAL builder needs, not assumptions
Examples: disk management, cert monitoring, DB backups (IF requested)
Showcase builds: Feature community creation on README

Week 4: Building Block Sprint¶

Based on Week 3 feedback: - [ ] Add top 2 requested building blocks - [ ] Write "How I Built X" tutorial with community member - [ ] Create video: "Building [Real Community Example]" - [ ] Document pattern library: "Common Building Patterns" - [ ] Blog: "What the Community Built in Week 1"

Key Principle: Don't ship features. Ship building blocks that unlock creativity.

Week 5-6: Celebrate & Amplify Community Creations¶

Content Celebrating Builders¶

Blog Series: "What You Can Build with ANSAI"
Part 1: "5 Creative Uses We Never Imagined"
Part 2: "Builder Spotlight: [Community Member's Creation]"
Part 3: "From Idea to Production in 2 Hours"
Part 4: "Combining Building Blocks: Advanced Patterns"
Video Tutorials (Show Real Builds)
"Watch Me Build: ChatOps in 15 Minutes"
"Community Build Walkthrough" (with builder)
"3 Ways to Use the Same Building Block"
"Debugging Your Custom Build"
Builder Spotlights
Interview community builders
Document their creations
Show their process
Inspire others

Community Engagement¶

Weekly Discussion: "Show & Tell - Share What You Built"
Celebrate builders: Feature "Builder of the Week"
Amplify creations: Share cool builds on social media
Help builders succeed (respond to questions within 24hrs)
Welcome new builders enthusiastically
Create "Good First Build" examples (not just "Good First Issue")
Mentor builders: "Let me help you build that!"

Week 7-8: Partnerships & Integrations¶

Cloud Provider Presence¶

DigitalOcean
Marketplace listing (if applicable)
Tutorial in their community
Reach out to DevRel team
Linode/Akamai
Community tutorial
Blog post opportunity
Hetzner
Community presence
German market reach

Integration Partnerships¶

Healthchecks.io
Official integration badge
Featured integration
Cross-promotion
Ansible Galaxy
Publish collection
Optimize discovery
Gather ratings/reviews
Monitoring Tools
Datadog integration guide
Grafana dashboards
Prometheus exporters

Week 9-10: Polish & Optimization¶

Documentation¶

Video: Complete walkthrough (30 min)
Migration guide (from manual processes)
Comparison guide (vs. alternatives)
FAQ from community questions
Troubleshooting runbook

Performance¶

Developer Experience¶

Week 11-12: Conference Prep & v1.1 Planning¶

Speaking Opportunities¶

v1.1 Planning¶

Retrospective¶

Content Calendar¶

Blog Posts (Weekly)¶

Week 1: "Introducing ANSAI: Self-Healing Infrastructure" Week 2: "Getting Started with ANSAI in 10 Minutes" Week 3: "Disk Space Management: Never Run Out Again" Week 4: "Automated Certificate Management with ANSAI" Week 5: "How ANSAI Saved Our Weekend On-Call" Week 6: "Self-Healing Patterns: Service Restart Strategies" Week 7: "Integrating ANSAI with Your Monitoring Stack" Week 8: "Community Spotlight: Early Adopter Stories" Week 9: "ANSAI Architecture Deep Dive" Week 10: "Building Your First ANSAI Plugin" Week 11: "Phase 1 Retrospective: Lessons Learned" Week 12: "Phase 2 Preview: What's Coming"

Monday: Feature highlight
Wednesday: Community spotlight / contributor recognition
Friday: Tip of the week / mini-tutorial

Community Engagement (Daily)¶

Check GitHub issues/discussions
Respond to questions
Review PRs
Update roadmap
Engage on social media

Launch Copy¶

Hacker News: "Show HN"¶

Show HN: ANSAI – Self-Healing Infrastructure with Ansible

I've been running production servers for years and kept running into the same problems: services crash at 2 AM, disk fills up over the weekend, SSL certificates expire and break everything. I'd fix each issue manually, then forget about it until next time.

So I built ANSAI - an Ansible-based framework that automatically detects and fixes common infrastructure failures. When a service crashes, it doesn't just restart it - it checks for port conflicts, validates configs, tests the database, and then sends you a detailed email explaining what broke and how it was fixed.

v1.0 includes:
- Universal service healing (any systemd service)
- JavaScript/CSS error monitoring for web apps
- External monitoring via Healthchecks.io for 100% coverage
- Complete test suite
- Production-ready documentation

It's MIT licensed and built to be extended. Already running in production managing ~10 services across several hosts.

Next up: disk space management, certificate monitoring, multi-host support.

Would love feedback, especially from folks running small-to-medium production deployments!

GitHub: https://github.com/thebyrdman-git/ansai

Reddit r/ansible¶

Released ANSAI v1.0: Self-Healing Infrastructure Framework

After years of manually fixing the same server issues at 2 AM, I built ANSAI - a self-healing framework that automatically detects and remediates common infrastructure failures.

Key features:
🛡️ Universal service healing with intelligent retry strategies
🔍 JavaScript & CSS error monitoring for web applications
💯 External monitoring integration (Healthchecks.io)
📧 Detailed email reports explaining what was fixed
🧪 100% test coverage with comprehensive test suite

Built entirely with Ansible, so it fits naturally into your existing infrastructure automation. MIT licensed, production-ready, and designed to be extended.

Real example: When a Flask app crashes due to database lock, ANSAI detects it, checks the SQLite database, clears the lock, restarts the service, and emails you with the complete diagnostic report. No manual intervention needed.

Perfect for:
- Homelab enthusiasts
- Small business servers
- SaaS applications
- Side projects that need reliability

GitHub: https://github.com/thebyrdman-git/ansai
Docs: https://github.com/thebyrdman-git/ansai/tree/main/docs/self-healing

Looking for early adopters and feedback! What infrastructure issues do YOU wish could self-heal?

Dev.to Article Outline¶

# Building Self-Healing Infrastructure: ANSAI v1.0

## The Problem
- Services fail at the worst times
- Manual fixes are repetitive
- Monitoring tells you WHAT broke, not HOW to fix it
- DevOps teams spend too much time firefighting

## The Solution
- Self-healing infrastructure
- Automatic detection + remediation
- Intelligent retry strategies
- Transparent reporting

## How ANSAI Works
- Architecture overview
- Healing strategies
- Email reporting
- Testing approach

## Getting Started
- Installation
- First deployment
- Adding services
- Customization

## Real-World Example
- Case study
- Before/after metrics
- Time saved
- Lessons learned

## What's Next
- Community priorities
- v2.0 roadmap
- How to contribute

## Try It Yourself
[Call to action]

Metrics Tracking¶

Weekly Dashboard¶

Track every Friday:

Growth: - GitHub stars (target: +5-10/week) - Forks (target: +2-5/week) - Deployments (estimated via discussions) - Community members

Engagement: - Issues opened/closed - Pull requests - Discussion posts - Comments/reactions

Content: - Blog post views - Video views - Social media engagement - Newsletter signups (if applicable)

Quality: - Issues and questions - Building block requests - User satisfaction (survey) - Contributor retention

Resource Allocation¶

Time Budget (assume 20 hours/week): - Community engagement: 5 hours (25%) - Feature development: 8 hours (40%) - Content creation: 4 hours (20%) - Planning/admin: 3 hours (15%)

Week 1-2: 70% outreach, 30% polish Week 3-4: 60% features, 40% community Week 5-8: 50% community, 30% content, 20% features Week 9-12: 40% planning, 30% polish, 30% community

Success Indicators¶

Week 4: - ✅ 20+ stars - ✅ 3+ production deployments - ✅ 2+ contributors - ✅ Active discussions

Week 8: - ✅ 40+ stars - ✅ 8+ production deployments - ✅ 4+ contributors - ✅ 50+ community members

Week 12 (End of Phase 1 Launch): - ✅ 50+ stars - ✅ 10-20 production deployments - ✅ 5+ contributors - ✅ 100+ community members - ✅ 2 new features shipped - ✅ Speaking opportunity secured

Risk Management¶

Risk: No initial traction Mitigation: Direct outreach to 20 people before public launch

Risk: Feature requests overwhelming Mitigation: Clear prioritization, say no to most, focus on top 3

Risk: Burnout Mitigation: 20 hour/week max, sustainable pace, ask for help

Risk: Quality issues Mitigation: Ship small, test thoroughly, responsive to issues

Risk: Community toxicity Mitigation: Code of conduct, quick moderation, positive culture

Next Immediate Actions¶

Today: 1. ✅ Create this launch strategy 2. [ ] Set up GitHub Discussions 3. [ ] Draft Hacker News post 4. [ ] Identify 10 people for direct outreach

This Week: 1. [ ] Launch on Hacker News 2. [ ] Post to Reddit (4 communities) 3. [ ] Reach out to 10 potential users 4. [ ] Start disk space monitoring feature

This Month: 1. [ ] Ship disk space management 2. [ ] Ship certificate monitoring 3. [ ] Get first 5 production deployments 4. [ ] Publish 4 blog posts

Let's build a community around infrastructure that heals itself! 🚀

Questions? Comments? Join the discussion: GitHub Discussions