An open-source CLI from weekend hack to 12k stars

The first version solved my own problem in an afternoon. It was never designed for anyone else — no docs, no tests, config by vibes. As stars and issues grew, every contribution cost more review time than it saved, and burnout was the realistic next step.

I treated the project like a product: a real contribution guide, an architecture decision record, a test suite that runs on every PR, semantic-release automation, and a small set of good-first-issues chosen to onboard new contributors into the codebase gently. Governance came before growth.

The project now sustains a steady contributor base with review time per PR down by more than half, releases ship automatically, and — the metric I am proudest of — a majority of merged PRs come from people who have never met me.