RobinRobin
A context-aware AI guide for prospective Bitcoin open-source contributors.
It tells you what to work on, what to read first, and — when it matters most
— when not to contribute yet.
Built for the bitcoin++ Nairobi Hackathon · Open Source Edition (June 2026).
The problemThe problem
Bitcoin open source is flooded with well-meaning but context-free pull requests.
A bootcamp grad finishes a Rust tutorial, opens Bitcoin Core, picks a randomgood first issue, and submits something a maintainer has to politely close.
Multiply that by hundreds of contributors a week. The cost lands on the tiny
number of senior maintainers whose time is the scarcest resource in the whole
ecosystem.
Most tools attack this with filters — bouncers that activate after the bad
PR already exists. Robin attacks it one layer upstream: it prevents the
low-context PR from being written in the first place, by giving contributors the
context they're missing.
What makes Robin different — honest redirectionWhat makes Robin different — honest redirection
The signature behavior is honest redirection. When someone without the right
background asks "what should I work on in Bitcoin Core?", Robin says
"Not Core. Not yet." and points them to smaller projects where they'll
genuinely help — warmly, never as a rejection.
Everyone else is building bouncers. We built a tour guide.
A senior engineer with relevant depth gets the opposite: specific, real, in-flight
work matched to where maintainer attention already is.
How it worksHow it works
Robin is structured intake → ranked output, not a chatbot.
┌──────────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ TELL ROBIN ABOUT YOU │ │ RECOMMENDED FOR YOU │
│ │ │ │
│ Presets: │ │ ⚠ A fork in the trail │
│ • Bootcamp grad │ ───▶ │ "Not Core. Not yet." │
│ • Senior C++ engineer │ │ │
│ • Designer │ │ 01 bitcoindevkit/bdk │
│ │ │ 02 mempool/mempool │
│ Languages, years, │ │ 03 bitcoin/bitcoin · doc/ │
│ interests, hours, goal │ │ │
│ [ Find my path → ] │ │ Each card expands to show │
│ │ │ why-now · what-to-read · │
│ │ │ honest fit · evidence │
└──────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────┘
🍴 "We ate our own dogfood" — the PR Robin told us to open- A contributor picks a persona preset or fills the short profile form
(languages, years of experience, interests, hours/week, goal, target repo). - The profile is sent to
/api/recommend, which prompts a real model with
context about the Bitcoin ecosystem's current trajectory and the
honest-redirection behavior. - Robin returns three ranked recommendation cards — each with the specific
area, why the project needs it now, what to read first, an honest fit
assessment, and the concrete signals behind it. If fit is low, a prominent
redirection banner appears.
The modelThe model
Recommendations are generated live by a model served through
OpenRouter. The model is fed a system prompt encoding
Robin's behavior plus a brief of the ecosystem's current state — it is RAG-style
retrieval and synthesis, not a fine-tuned or "trained" model.
If the model is unavailable (no key, network failure, timeout), Robin silently
falls back to a curated golden-path response so a live demo never breaks. The
response includes a _source field ("model" or "fallback") so you can tell
which path ran.
Note: reasoning models (e.g. Opus 4.8, GLM 5.1) take ~25–30s per answer.
A skeleton loader covers the wait. SwapOPENROUTER_MODELfor a faster model
if you need snappier responses.
Tech stackTech stack
- Next.js 16 (App Router) + React 19 + TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS v4 — pure-black canvas with a Bitcoin-orange accent
- One API route (
/api/recommend) calling OpenRouter — no separate backend - Fonts: Fraunces (Robin's voice), Hanken Grotesk (UI), JetBrains Mono (metadata)
Getting startedGetting started
# 1. Install dependencies
pnpm install # or: npm install
# 2. Configure your model key
cp .env.example .env.local
# then edit .env.local:
# OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-... ← your OpenRouter key
# OPENROUTER_MODEL=anthropic/claude-opus-4.8 ← any OpenRouter model slug
# 3. Run
pnpm dev # or: npm run devOpen http://localhost:3000.
Without a key, Robin still runs — it serves the curated fallback responses.
Demo shortcutsDemo shortcuts
Deep-link a preset to auto-run it on load (handy for screenshots or a backup):
http://localhost:3000/?persona=bootcamp
http://localhost:3000/?persona=senior
http://localhost:3000/?persona=designerProject structureProject structure
app/
├── page.tsx # two-column structured-intake page
├── api/recommend/route.ts # POST profile → ranked recommendations
├── lib/
│ ├── robin.ts # system prompt + OpenRouter call + fallback
│ └── personas.ts # presets, types, curated golden-path responses
└── components/
├── Intake.tsx # persona presets + profile form
├── Results.tsx # recommendation cards, redirection banner, dogfood
└── icons.tsx # hand-built marksEnvironment variablesEnvironment variables
| Variable | Required | Description |
OPENROUTER_API_KEY | no* | OpenRouter key. Without it, Robin serves the fallback. |
OPENROUTER_MODEL | no | Model slug. Default: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6. |
OPENROUTER_BASE_URL | no | Override the API base. |
OPENROUTER_SITE_URL | no | OpenRouter attribution header. |
OPENROUTER_SITE_NAME | no | OpenRouter attribution header. |
* Required for live model output; optional for the curated demo fallback.
Secrets live in .env.local, which is gitignored. Never commit real keys.
RoadmapRoadmap
See http://docs/ROADMAP.md. Next up: a Project Needs Portal
(maintainers publish what they need → two-sided matching) and Connect GitHub
(infer a contributor's real expertise from their history instead of self-report).
LicenseLicense
MIT
RepositoryRepository
https://github.com/itschrisoketch/Robin