Online communities are the lifeblood of modern brands, products, and movements. But building, managing, and scaling a forum from scratch is a monumental task. You have to worry about the database, backend logic, moderation tools, and user engagement features—all before you even write a single line of frontend code.
What if you could bypass that complexity? What if you could treat sophisticated forum services as simple, scalable software, managed through a single API?
This is the promise of forum.services.do. This guide will walk you through a step-by-step tutorial on creating a feature-rich, AI-powered online community from the ground up using a powerful forum API.
Traditional forum software locks you into a specific look, feel, and feature set. An API-first approach, however, puts you in complete control.
forum.services.do is an Agentic Workflow Platform that provides powerful forum and community management services through a simple API. It allows you to programmatically create, moderate, and analyze online communities as if they were software.
At its core, it's designed to automate forum management with a single API call. You can leverage a powerful AI agent to moderate content, analyze user sentiment, and foster a thriving online community without the manual overhead.
Getting started is as simple as installing the SDK and making your first API call. Let's imagine we're building a forum for our new TypeScript SDK.
First, you would install the client library into your project:
npm install @services/do
Now, you can initialize the client and start interacting with the API. Creating a new thread is incredibly straightforward.
import { forum } from '@services/do';
// Assumes you have your API key configured
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);
Just like that, you've programmatically created a new discussion thread. The API handles storing the data, associating it with the right user, and making it available to be displayed on your frontend.
With the basic create call understood, let's build out the essential features of any forum.
To display a list of discussions on your forum's homepage, you'd use a list method.
const allThreads = await forum.threads.list({
forumId: 'f-12345',
limit: 20,
sortBy: 'latestActivity'
});
// Now you can use `allThreads` to render your UI
When a user wants to reply to a thread, you'll create a new post associated with that thread's ID.
const newPost = await forum.posts.create({
threadId: newThread.id, // ID from the thread we created earlier
authorId: 'u-fghij',
content: "Great question! You can find the full documentation at docs.services.do. Welcome to the community!"
});
console.log('New post added:', newPost.id);
To render a full thread page, you need both the original post and all its replies.
const { thread, posts } = await forum.threads.getWithPosts({
threadId: newThread.id
});
// `thread` contains info like title, author, etc.
// `posts` is an array of all replies to render
With just these few API endpoints, you have the foundation for a fully functional forum that you can design however you wish.
Here's where an API-first approach really pays off. forum.services.do comes with a built-in AI agent to automate community management.
Our AI agent automatically scans every new post and comment for spam, hate speech, and other policy violations. You can configure rules to determine the outcome.
This ensures your community remains a safe and positive environment 24/7 without requiring a constant human presence.
How healthy is your community? What are your users talking about? Are they happy? The API gives you an answer.
You can programmatically access rich analytics data, including:
const analytics = await forum.analytics.get({
forumId: 'f-12345',
timePeriod: '30d'
});
console.log('Positive Sentiment Score:', analytics.sentiment.positive);
These insights, accessible via the API, allow you to measure community health and make data-driven decisions.
Q: What is forum.services.do?
A: forum.services.do is an Agentic Workflow Platform providing forum and community management services via a simple API. It allows you to programmatically create, moderate, and analyze online communities as if they were software.
Q: How does the AI moderation work?
A: Our AI agent automatically scans posts and comments for spam, hate speech, and policy violations. It can flag content for human review or take immediate action based on your configured rules, ensuring a safe and positive environment.
Q: Can I integrate this with my existing application?
A: Absolutely. forum.services.do is designed for easy integration. You can use our SDKs or call the REST API directly from any application to manage your community's data and operations.
Q: What kind of analytics can I get?
A: Our platform provides rich analytics on user engagement, sentiment analysis, popular topics, and moderator activity. Access this data via API to gain insights and measure the health of your community.
Stop wrestling with clunky, monolithic forum software. By adopting an API-first approach with forum.services.do, you gain the ultimate flexibility to build a community that perfectly fits your brand, combined with powerful AI automation to manage it effortlessly.
You build the frontend experience your users will love; we'll provide the scalable, intelligent backend to make it all possible.
Ready to automate your community management? Visit forum.services.do to get your API key and start building today.