DevDapp: Gamifying GitHub with a Web3 Overlay

January 16th, 2025

We’ve built DevDapp to reward developers for contributing to open-source. Our Web3 GitHub engine assigns token rewards to developers for completing tasks. Tasks developers complete help make our open-source Dapp building engine called RAIRprotocol better.

Web3 projects win because devs build on their rails
Devs win by getting compensated in tokens for their hard work
Open-source wins when RAIRprotocol becomes a better open-source alternative to proprietary SaaS-based Dapp building platforms

If you read this article you’ll learn how to participate in the upcoming DevDapp points campaign! 🎉🎉

Follow on X: https://x.com/rairprotocol
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/nxVB2M4rWq
Join the GitHub today to start participating: https://github.com/rairprotocol/

How DevDapp Works

The game above loop shows how developers and auditors coordinate to submit code and earn rewards.

The first design principle of DevDapp is to use a GitHub-only Web3 login.

This allows us to use GitHub as the underlying source of truth for project management.
With a GitHub-controlled Web3 wallet added on top. Using Oauth, we bind the control of an underlying crypto wallet to use GitHub for access (sign transactions, write data, transfer funds ER20, ERC721 etc) with Metamask equivalent functionality). Under the hood, our partners at Alchemy make the on-chain wallets (ERC4337 on Base), and partners at Web3Auth store your private keys for you (MPC).

In combination, GitHub + a connected wallet = a viable path to reward devs in real time for code contributions. Most devs are already familiar with GitHub. Using GitHub to control their Web3 wallet is a simple next step.

II. GitHub Event Listener

The heart of DevDapp relies on using GitHub as the source-of-truth to calculate developer rewards.

We know what your GitHub handle is when you onboard to DevDapp.
We can then search the GitHub API for all events associated with your handle inside of our target repositories.
We use the GitHub labeling system to keep track of issues and assign point values to different types of tasks. New development, chores, bug fixes, etc. Front, Backend, Integrations, devops tasks.
When devs have their submitted issues labeled by our admins, or merge pull requests with functional new code, they receive rewards.

III. Rewards Engine

Properly specifying tasks and accurately measuring their difficulty is the hardest part of project management.

To make this as foolproof as possible, we built a video-based tasking system. Each issue made in GitHub is labeled by our admins with a corresponding video explaining the task.
An approximate difficulty and time estimate is coded into the task. Difficulty, time estimate, and task type are used to calculate the raw point value of a task. GitHub admins have (+100%) leeway in the final difficulty assessment at the time of the QA/QC process. Can double the final received point value at their discretion. We will explain in future sections how the GitHub admin governance works.
Labels associated with the tasks determine which rewards the devs will receive on successful completion (merged PR). E.g. devs can earn our native tokens + partner tokens.
Devs can also earn points for completing ancillary tasks directly inside of DevDapp like completing their profile, referring other devs, etc.

IV. Ranking and Campaign System

Leaderboard UI showing devs ranked by level. We scrape their GitHub profiles to determine top language and other data to complete their profile.

The second hardest part of project management is knowing how to properly reward effort. All devs should have a fair shot to earn rewards from a level playing field.

Devs earn levels as they earn points. This system provides a way to abstract the raw point value of a task. Directly publishing the points algorithm makes the system exploitable, while levels give a fair indication of effort.
Devs are ranked based on their level from 1 through however many devs are competing.
At the end of a defined rewards period (called a campaign), devs earn token payouts based on their rank. This is the most fair way to distribute rewards, as all devs begin the campaign at the same starting line, and know the full distribution rules ahead of time.

V. Teams

Every campaign is run for a fixed period, with a fixed prize pool. In between campaigns, new issues accrue until there is sufficient incentive to begin the next campaign.

To participate in the campaign, devs must choose a team.
Each team has a shared team wallet that accrues a percentage of the rewards.
These shared funds are used to pay for neutral GitHub administrators to QA/QC the campaign.

By default, the first available team is the RAIRprotocol team. New teams can be formed by burning RAIRprotocol tokens post TGE (more details to follow on our TGE plans in the next post).

Contributing to RAIRprotocol

RAIRprotocol uses the GitHub labeling system to trigger our rewards engine.

DevDapp was originally conceived to support the development of the open-source RAIRprotocol. We want 🫵 your help 🫵 to improve our open source!

Points Campaign Details

When: Campaign starts 3/1/2024 @ ETHDenver with points bonus incentives for IRL signups.
How Much: 5% of the total RAIR token supply. (50m RAIR) + Partner tokens
Campaign period: 60 Days
Distribution: 50% rewards to the top 1% of developers. 50% distributed to the bottom 99%. Everyone who participates will earn RAIR!

to learn when you can connect your GitHub to enter!

Addendum: Gritty details for the devs!

RAIRprotocol source code includes:

Open Source dApp Building Engine

RAIRprotocol is a fully open-source dApp building engine.

RAIR-front. Frontend (written in REACT + Typescript) Profile pages, authentication, full marketplace UI. Administrator UI for NFT minting, user & metadata management
RAIR-node. Fully open source dApp backend. Includes 90+ API endpoints. Node-based. Fully documented Schema. Abstracted via RAIR-SDK. 100% Open Source Node.js backend (E.g. deploy your API on your own cloud)
RAIR-sync. RPC syncing engine to keep off-chain DB state in sync with the blockchain.
RAIR-stream. DRM (digital rights management) engine. HLS encoding and end-to-end encrypted streaming. Keys to unlock HLS files are never decryptable
RAIR-infra. Fully open source DevOps tooling including manifest files, and other K8-specific infra. GitHub actions CI/CD pipeline
RAIR-solidity. ERC2535 Diamond multi-proxy based trade and execution engine. On-chain resales or gas-free with cloud signing. Set prices, transfer conditions, royalties, and other on-chain trade and execution parameters