Episode 272: Maintainer Month 2025 with Sarah Rainsberger of Astro

Guest Sarah Rainsberger Panelists Richard Littauer | Abby Mayes |
Eriol Fox Show Notes In this special Maintainer Month episode of
Sustain, hosts Richard, Abby, and Eriol talk with guest, Sarah
Rainsberger, a documentation lead at Astro, who shares her journey
from teaching high school mathematics to becoming an open source
contributor. Sarah elaborates on her approach to documentation,
emphasizing the importance of clear, supportive, and inclusive
communication to onboard new contributors effectively. She also
discusses using low-tech tools like Chromebooks and cloud-based
editors for open source contributions. The episode highlights the
strategies employed by the Astro Docs team to recognize and value
contributions. Press download now to hear more! [00:02:30] Sarah
shares her background, role at Astro, how she got involved in
documentation that started by fixing a bad choir website, and why
she chose Astro over Gatsby and quickly became a key contributor.
[00:06:49] She reflects on the moment she connected her work with
the concept of “open source.” [00:07:54] Sarah talks about becoming
a leader using Chromebook, taking lessons on Scrimba, and using
cloud tools like CodeSandbox and Gitpod, the Astro community
embracing her methods, and how she built a reputation as someone
making meaningful contributions regardless of hardware. [00:14:24]
Sarah explains how docs are “self-serve support” and essential to
project success. [00:16:28] The conversation turns to combatting
the stigma that docs are low value and Sarah addresses the false
perception that documentation isn’t real development. [00:18:28]
Sarah shares that Astro has over 1,000 docs contributors and
details their intentional process of welcoming, crediting, and
celebrating new contributors. [00:24:37] How does Astro handle
lower-quality contributions? Astro uses the motto: “Not worse than
what we had before.” They edit or mentor rather than reject, to
build confidence and retain contributors. [00:29:12] Astro
maintains a separate documentation site (“D Squared”) that outlines
its processes for contributing to documentation. [00:33:25] Sarah
shares where to find her work at the Astro Docs and where to find
her. Quotes [00:05:26] “If I’m going in, let’s go all in.”
[00:12:50] “I have chosen to maintain low tech.” [00:12:59] “I am
known for my evil devices.” [00:14:36] “Docs are so important to a
project that you want someone else to use or contribute to.”
[00:15:28] “Docs is the most scalable type of support that you can
have.” [00:16:37] “Everyone complains about docs until it’s someone
else’s project.” [00:26:51] “PRs don’t just fall out of the sky;
they are effort, and they are work.” [00:27:05] “There is some
motivation behind this PR.” [00:31:41] “Several of our maintainers
started by translating the docs.” [00:31:49] “If you want to find
mistakes in your English docs, you want translators.” Spotlight
[00:34:40] Abby’s’ spotlight is CommunityRule. [00:35:04] Eriol’s
spotlight is State of Docs. [00:35:19] Richard’s spotlight is
Nathan Schneider and the Protocol Oral History Project. [00:36:08]
Sarah’s spotlight is Better GitHub Co-Authors. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org
(mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) richard@sustainoss.org
(mailto:richard@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS Discourse
(https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Mastodon
(https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) SustainOSS Bluesky
(https://bsky.app/profile/sustainoss.bsky.social) SustainOSS
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/sustainoss/) Open
Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
(https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials
(https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Abby Cabunoc Mayes
GitHub (https://abbycabs.github.io/) Eriol Fox GitHub
(https://erioldoesdesign.github.io/) Sarah Rainsberger Website
(https://www.rainsberger.ca/) Sarah Rainsberger Mastodon
(https://mastodon.social/@sarah11918) Non-code contributions are
the secret to open source success (The ReadME Project)
(https://github.com/readme/featured/open-source-non-code-contributions)
Astro (https://astro.build/) Astro Docs
(https://docs.astro.build/en/getting-started/) Contribute to Astro
(https://docs.astro.build/en/contribute/) Gitpod
(https://www.gitpod.io/) Scrimba (https://scrimba.com/home) Hugo
Server (https://gohugo.io/commands/hugo_server/) CommunityRule
(https://communityrule.info/) State of Docs
(https://www.stateofdocs.com/2025/introduction-basic-stats) Better
GitHub Co-Authors
(https://github.com/delucis/better-github-coauthors) Sustain
Podcast-Episode 85: Geoffrey Huntley and Sustaining OSS with Gitpod
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/85) Sustain Podcast- 2 episodes
featuring Nathan Schneider
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/nathan-schneider) Credits
Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by
Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest: Sarah Rainsberger.