API — will developers adopt it?
Brief 115

Developer Portal & Onboarding

The first hour a developer spends with this API — from landing on the docs to a working integration — and where they stall, guess, or give up.

DEVPORTAL.md4 phases7 lenses~2.7k chars

Free & open · no signup · read-only — it ends by asking · nothing leaves your machine

What it does

You are working inside this repo. Mission: judge the developer's first hour — from finding the docs to making a real call work — because adoption is won or lost before they ever build the actual integration.

This judges the portal and docs — the path to a working call. For the ergonomics of the SDK itself, run 112.

Read-only pass. Read the docs, quickstart, reference, and auth setup; follow them yourself if you can. Change nothing but the report file.

What it looks for

7 lenses it looks through

Phase 2 sweeps the codebase through every one of these, citing file and line for each finding.

1

Time to first call

how fast a developer gets from docs to a successful request

2

Key & auth setup

getting credentials and authenticating: self-serve, clear, quick

3

Quickstart honesty

a copy-paste example that actually works, in the reader's language

4

Reference quality

complete, accurate endpoint docs with real request and response examples

5

Sandbox & testing

a way to try calls safely: test keys, example data

6

Errors as docs

do API errors teach (clear codes, links) or send you back to searching

7

Discoverability

can a developer find the one thing they need without reading everything

The deliverable

What lands in your repo

One structured report at the repo root — or in reports/, if you keep one — the same shape every time, ready for a teammate — or the optional Studio — to act on.

DEVPORTAL.md
1
First hour, walked
the path to a working call, with every stall
2
Findings
each: lens · location · what a developer hits · the fix
3
Time-to-integration
the reality today and the achievable target
4
Highest leverage
the fixes that most shorten the path from docs to done
One file. Evidence-backed. It ends by asking before touching anything.
How it works

What it makes the agent do

Every Goal Prompt follows the same four steps, so results are consistent and repeatable — no matter which one you run.

1
Phase 1

Onboard yourself

Start where a new developer starts and try to reach a first successful call.

2
Phase 2

Audit through 7 lenses

Time to first call — how fast a developer gets from docs to a successful request.

3
Phase 3

Curate

Rank by how many developers stall at each point and how early it is in the journey.

4
Phase 4

Report

Create DEVPORTAL.md at repo root.

Get started

Three ways to run this Goal Prompt

01 · COPY

Paste it in

Copy it and paste it into your agent inside the repo you want checked.

02 · INSTALL

As a slash command

Install the goal plugin once — two commands — then just type /goal:developer-portal.

1/plugin marketplace add GhostlyGawd/goal-prompts
2/plugin install goal@goal-prompts

Or install only this Goal Prompt as /goal-developer-portal:

curl -fsSL https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/install | BRIEF=115 sh
03 · AGENT

From an agent (MCP)

Let an agent fetch it mid-conversation, or pull the raw Goal Prompt by URL.

https://goal-prompts.vercel.app/raw/115.md
Transparency

The exact prompt

Nothing hidden — this is the whole Goal Prompt, verbatim. Read it in a minute, edit it, or copy it as-is.

Read the full brief (2,724 characters)
# Goal: Developer Portal & Onboarding

You are working inside this repo. Mission: judge the developer's first hour — from finding the docs to making a real call work — because adoption is won or lost before they ever build the actual integration.

This judges the portal and docs — the path to a working call. For the ergonomics of the SDK itself, run 112.

Read-only pass. Read the docs, quickstart, reference, and auth setup; follow them yourself if you can. Change nothing but the report file.

## Phase 1 — Onboard yourself
- Start where a new developer starts and try to reach a first successful call.
- Note where you have to guess, search, or leave the docs to make progress.
- Check the path to credentials and authentication.

## Phase 2 — Audit through 7 lenses
1. **Time to first call** — how fast a developer gets from docs to a successful request
2. **Key & auth setup** — getting credentials and authenticating: self-serve, clear, quick
3. **Quickstart honesty** — a copy-paste example that actually works, in the reader's language
4. **Reference quality** — complete, accurate endpoint docs with real request and response examples
5. **Sandbox & testing** — a way to try calls safely: test keys, example data
6. **Errors as docs** — do API errors teach (clear codes, links) or send you back to searching
7. **Discoverability** — can a developer find the one thing they need without reading everything

## Phase 3 — Curate
- Rank by how many developers stall at each point and how early it is in the journey.
- For each, name the fix — a working example, a test key, a clearer reference, a searchable doc.
- Weight the first ten minutes most; that is where people decide to continue or leave.

## Phase 4 — Report
Create `DEVPORTAL.md` at repo root:
1. **First hour, walked** — the path to a working call, with every stall
2. **Findings** — each: lens · location · what a developer hits · the fix
3. **Time-to-integration** — the reality today and the achievable target
4. **Highest leverage** — the fixes that most shorten the path from docs to done

Start the report with today's date. If `DEVPORTAL.md` already exists from a previous run, read it first and lead with what changed since.

## Rules
- Judge the path to a working call, not the prettiness of the docs
- A quickstart that does not run is worse than none; it burns trust
- No developer portal or public API docs in this repo? Say so in a one-paragraph null report and stop — a null result is a valid finding.
- If a `reports/` directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root.
- Before asking, present the top findings as a ranked list in plain words
- Report only — end by asking which onboarding fixes to make first

House rules for this Goal Prompt

  • Judge the path to a working call, not the prettiness of the docs
  • A quickstart that does not run is worse than none; it burns trust
  • No developer portal or public API docs in this repo? Say so in a one-paragraph null report and stop — a null result is a valid finding.
  • If a reports/ directory exists at the repo root, write the report there instead of the root.
  • Before asking, present the top findings as a ranked list in plain words
  • Report only — end by asking which onboarding fixes to make first
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