CommunityRouter

CommunityRouter reduces onboarding chaos by guiding Reddit users toward the right communities, megathreads, and participation paths through an interactive moderator-controlled onboarding experience.

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Inspiration

Reddit communities are incredibly powerful, but onboarding inside many subreddits is still highly fragmented and reactive.

New users frequently struggle to understand:

  • where they should post,
  • which communities are relevant,
  • how participation flows work,
  • where megathreads are located,
  • and what type of content is actually expected.

As a result, moderators repeatedly deal with:

  • repetitive onboarding questions,
  • misplaced posts,
  • low-quality participation,
  • onboarding confusion,
  • and constant manual redirection.

Most onboarding systems today rely on static wiki pages, long rule lists, pinned threads, or reactive moderation after problems already happen.

We wanted to rethink onboarding as infrastructure instead of documentation.

That became the foundation for CommunityRouter.

CommunityRouter transforms onboarding from a reactive moderation problem into a proactive participation system that guides users before low-quality or misplaced posts are created.

What it does

CommunityRouter is a Devvit-powered pre-post onboarding and moderation infrastructure system for Reddit communities.

Instead of forcing users to navigate large wiki pages or search across fragmented subreddit ecosystems manually, CommunityRouter provides an interactive onboarding flow directly inside Reddit.

Users can select onboarding intents such as:

  • finding freelance work,
  • hiring developers,
  • discovering learning communities,
  • finding cofounders,
  • receiving portfolio feedback,
  • or navigating startup ecosystems.

Based on the selected participation path, CommunityRouter dynamically provides:

  • curated subreddit destinations,
  • onboarding guidance,
  • posting expectations,
  • moderation warnings,
  • participation recommendations,
  • megathread routing,
  • and subreddit-specific readiness information.

The goal is not simply subreddit discovery.

The goal is reducing onboarding friction and preventing moderation problems before they happen.

Moderators can configure onboarding flows directly through Devvit-powered moderation tooling without writing code.

Communities can customize:

  • onboarding categories,
  • subreddit destinations,
  • onboarding guidance,
  • moderation warnings,
  • participation notes,
  • onboarding visibility,
  • and recommendation flows.

CommunityRouter also includes lightweight onboarding intelligence and analytics, helping moderators understand:

  • onboarding engagement,
  • most selected onboarding paths,
  • most visited destinations,
  • routing effectiveness,
  • and participation trends.

How we built it

CommunityRouter was built entirely on Reddit’s Developer Platform using Devvit.

The project uses:

  • Devvit
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Vite
  • Devvit Custom Posts
  • Devvit Redis State Management
  • Devvit Settings API

We designed the onboarding system as a reusable routing infrastructure layer rather than a static onboarding page.

The frontend dynamically renders moderator-configured onboarding flows and subreddit routing cards inside interactive Devvit custom posts.

We also implemented:

  • Redis-backed onboarding persistence,
  • live onboarding previews,
  • moderator-editable routing systems,
  • onboarding analytics,
  • responsive onboarding dashboards,
  • and dynamic participation routing flows.

A major focus during development was creating a system that felt deeply native to Reddit’s ecosystem while remaining lightweight and scalable for moderators.

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges was balancing onboarding simplicity with moderator configurability.

We wanted the onboarding flow to feel frictionless and intuitive for users while still giving moderators meaningful control over onboarding infrastructure.

Another challenge was avoiding overengineering.

Early versions of the concept became too large and attempted to solve too many onboarding problems simultaneously.

We eventually narrowed the scope into a focused moderation infrastructure system centered around pre-post routing and participation guidance.

Designing onboarding analytics was another challenge.

We wanted moderators to gain useful onboarding insights without introducing unnecessary backend complexity or external infrastructure.

We also spent significant time refining:

  • onboarding hierarchy,
  • scalability perception,
  • dashboard information architecture,
  • responsive behavior,
  • light/dark mode consistency,
  • and overall UX polish.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are especially proud that CommunityRouter evolved from a broad onboarding idea into a focused, functional moderation infrastructure product.

Key accomplishments include:

  • building a fully interactive onboarding routing system,
  • implementing moderator-controlled onboarding infrastructure,
  • creating dynamic subreddit participation flows,
  • adding Redis-backed persistence,
  • designing onboarding intelligence analytics,
  • supporting scalable onboarding management,
  • and delivering a polished Reddit-native experience inside Devvit.

We are also proud that CommunityRouter feels like a believable moderation utility rather than a static prototype or UI concept.

What we learned

This project taught us how critical onboarding infrastructure is for healthy online communities.

We learned that many moderation problems are actually onboarding problems in disguise.

By guiding users before participation mistakes happen, communities can significantly reduce moderation overhead while improving participation quality and onboarding clarity.

We also learned how important product focus is during hackathon development.

Reducing scope and focusing on one meaningful workflow allowed us to transform a large concept into a polished, functional Devvit product.

What's next for CommunityRouter

Future versions of CommunityRouter could expand onboarding intelligence much further.

Potential next steps include:

  • subreddit onboarding templates,
  • community-specific onboarding presets,
  • improved onboarding analytics,
  • onboarding automation flows,
  • participation quality insights,
  • moderator onboarding recommendations,
  • and expanded support for additional Reddit community ecosystems.

We also see long-term potential for CommunityRouter to become reusable onboarding infrastructure that can scale across onboarding-heavy Reddit communities.

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