Why a lead generation toolkit for devtools?
Most devtool companies struggle with lead generation because they use traditional SaaS playbooks.
Developers don’t respond to cold emails – they ignore them. Instead, they signal intent in public: GitHub, Reddit, Hacker News, and more.
The problem isn’t lack of data – it’s capturing and using it effectively.
That’s why we built the Leadgen Toolkit for DevTools — six open-source skills to run your entire pipeline.
Here’s how to get started
You can install the leadgen skills to use with Claude Code:
npx gooseworks leadgen
#Installs the devtools leadgen skill pack
Alternatively, you can install them directly from the Skills Library at skills.gooseworks.ai.
Next, provide the following to your Claude Code:
- Your website URL – Claude Code researches your business and figures out what your product does, who it’s for, what you compete with, and what technologies are in your space.
- It builds a complete business context — your ICP, competitor list, relevant GitHub repos, subreddits where your buyers hang out, conferences in your vertical, and the search queries that will surface intent signals.
Two minutes of input. Zero configuration. The orchestrator presents what it found, you confirm or adjust, and it routes to the right signal skills with every input pre-filled.
Four signal skills find leads where developers actually show intent
Each signal skill targets a different surface where developers publicly express needs, frustrations, and buying intent.
1. GitHub Repo Signals
- You provide Claude Code with a list of repos — competitors, adjacent tools, or category leaders.
- It uses
github-repo-signalsskill to pull stars, forks, issues, PRs, comments, and contributions via the GitHub API. Each action is weighted by intent. - Then it deduplicates users, ranks them by breadth of interaction first, then depth, and enriches profiles with data like company, social links, and commit emails.
- A developer active across multiple competing tools ranks far higher than someone deeply engaged with just one.
- If multiple engineers from the same company are active across these repos, it’s not curiosity — it’s evaluation. The system flags these clusters and tells you whether to target individuals or the entire account.
2. Community Signals — nine categories of buying intent from HN and Reddit
- The AI agent uses this skill to generate 3-5 search queries per intent category based on your product context.
- It then scans Hacker News (free API) and Reddit (via Apify, ~$5-10 per run).
- Every matching post and comment gets categorized into one of nine intent types:
- Alternative-seeking (score: 9) — “What are people using instead of X?”
- DIY / built own (score: 9) — “I built my own because nothing on the market did X”
- Migration intent (score: 9) — “We’re planning to move off X this quarter”
- Competitor pain (score: 8) — “We’ve been using X and the latency is killing us”
- Tool comparison (score: 8) — “Has anyone compared X vs Y vs Z?”
- Scaling challenge (score: 7) — “This worked at 10K requests but now we’re at 500K”
- Budget / pricing (score: 7) — “X just raised prices again, looking for options”
- Feature gap (score: 7) — “X would be perfect if it just had Y”
- Problem-space (score: 6) — “How do you handle log aggregation at scale?”
Users found on both HN and Reddit get a +10 cross-platform bonus. The output: a scored list of people who publicly told you exactly what they need.
3. Competitor Signals — turning your competitors’ audience into your pipeline
- Claude Code uses this skill to watch what your competitors’ customers do publicly.
- It scrapes competitor case study pages, review platforms, and social mentions.
- People who leave reviews, appear in case studies, or publicly discuss competitor products are signaling both domain relevance and willingness to evaluate alternatives.
4. Event Signals — conference speakers, meetup organizers, podcast guests
- This is the broadest skill in the toolkit. It helps Claude discover events via Sessionize,
Confs.tech, Meetup, Luma, LinkedIn Events, and podcast directories. - Someone who gave a talk titled “How We Replaced Terraform with Pulumi” is telling you exactly what they care about.
- The skill looks both backward (past speakers) and forward (upcoming events) to build a pipeline of engaged, visible developers in your space.
5. The demo builder turns your best leads into closed deals
This is the skill that changes the economics of DevTools outbound entirely.
The signal skills find the leads. The demo builder converts them. Here’s what it does — step by step — for your highest-scored prospects:
- It researches the prospect deeply
- It proposes demo concepts you approve
- It builds a working prototype — not a mockup
- It generates a personalized outreach email with the demo link
Your email isn’t “Can I show you what we do?” It’s “I built this for you — here’s the link.” That’s what changes a <1% reply rate into a conversation.
Start running the pipeline today
The entire toolkit is open-source. Here’s how to start:
- Install the skills at skills.gooseworks.ai
- Run lead discovery — point it at your website and let the orchestrator build your business context
- Review and enrich — confirm the signals, let the demo builder create personalized outreach
This runs inside Claude Code or Codex as a hands-on-keyboard workflow.
Want the entire pipeline running autonomously — try Goose.