Building an online community is a rewarding endeavor. It can transform passive users into passionate advocates, reduce support loads, and provide invaluable product feedback. But let's be honest: it’s also incredibly hard. The day-to-day grind of moderating content, encouraging engagement, and fighting spam can drain resources from even the most dedicated teams.
What if you could build, manage, and scale your community not as a manual chore, but as simple, scalable software?
This is the story of CodeCrafters Inc., a lean startup with a brilliant new developer tool. They knew a community was crucial for success, but with a small team, the overhead seemed insurmountable. Then they discovered a new approach: treating their community as an extension of their codebase.
The CodeCrafters team had a clear vision. They wanted a vibrant space where developers could:
But their vision quickly collided with reality. As a small team focused on product development, they faced several daunting questions:
They were stuck. The very thing they needed to grow—a community—felt like a luxury they couldn't afford to manage.
While searching for a better way, the lead developer at CodeCrafters stumbled upon forum.services.do. The headline on the homepage immediately caught their attention: "Automate Forum Management with a Single API Call."
This was their "Aha!" moment.
They realized they didn't need another clunky dashboard or a separate platform. They needed an API. By using forum.services.do, they could manage their community programmatically. It wouldn't be a separate, manual task; it would be an integral part of their application's infrastructure, an agentic workflow they could control with code.
Getting started was refreshingly simple. Using the TypeScript SDK, the CodeCrafters team integrated a full-featured forum directly into their user dashboard in a single afternoon.
With just a few lines of code, they could programmatically create new threads. When a user submitted a question through a form in their app, it wasn't just sent to an email inbox—it was posted directly to the community forum.
import { forum } from '@services/do';
const newThread = await forum.threads.create({
forumId: 'f-12345',
title: 'How to use the .do SDK?',
content: 'I am new here and would like to learn more about the platform capabilities.',
authorId: 'u-abcde',
tags: ['sdk', 'getting-started', 'typescript']
});
console.log('New thread created:', newThread.id);
Suddenly, the technical burden was gone. The community was no longer a separate entity but a dynamic feature of their core product, built and managed with the same tools they used every day.
The real magic happened after the initial setup. The forum.services.do AI agent became CodeCrafters' tireless community manager, working 24/7.
1. Effortless AI Moderation:
Almost immediately, the AI agent began scanning every new post and comment. Spam was automatically quarantined. Inappropriate language was flagged for review. This freed the development team from the constant worry of toxic behavior and allowed them to focus on what they do best: building a great product. They had established a safe and positive environment from day one, entirely on autopilot.
2. Data-Driven Engagement:
When CodeCrafters launched a new beta feature, they didn't just hope for feedback—they queried it. Using the API, they pulled sentiment analysis data for all threads tagged beta-feature. They discovered that while a few users were vocal about a specific bug, the overall sentiment was overwhelmingly positive. This data gave them the confidence to move forward while providing a clear, actionable bug report to fix.
3. Automated Forum Nurturing:
The team set up simple scripts using the API to foster engagement.
This level of forum automation made the community feel responsive and alive, encouraging more users to participate.
Six months later, the CodeCrafters community is a cornerstone of their business.
Most importantly, they achieved all of this without hiring a dedicated community team. Their community scales not with headcount, but with API calls.
The story of CodeCrafters isn't unique—it's what happens when you shift your mindset. An online community shouldn't be a resource drain. It should be a dynamic asset, managed with the same efficiency and scalability as the rest of your software stack.
forum.services.do provides the agentic platform to make that happen. Stop managing forums and start programming them.
Ready to turn your community vision into reality? Explore the API and start building today.