how to pitch your tool to awesome-list maintainers privately
Describes how to approach awesome-list maintainers about including your tool: researching the list's bar, writing a private pitch, and what to do if they say no. Use when your tool fits a curated list; not for spammy mass outreach or lists with an explicit no-self-submission rule.
TL;DR
Awesome lists are curated by humans with strong opinions; a thoughtful private note beats a cold PR. Maintainers mostly reject for fit, not quality, so the pitch should argue fit. Applies to GitHub awesome lists and similar curated directories.
The query
how to pitch your tool to awesome-list maintainers privatelyUse this when
- Your tool fits a curated awesome list's scope.
- The list accepts suggestions or outside submissions.
- You want a private approach before opening a PR.
Not for
- The list says no self-submissions (respect it; get someone else to suggest it).
- Your tool does not clearly fit the list's scope (a bad fit wastes the maintainer's time).
- You plan to pitch dozens of lists with the same template (that is spam; pick the five best fits).
Steps
- Read the list's contribution guidelines and recent merged PRs to learn the actual bar.
Expected output: A clear sense of what gets merged and why.
- Write a short private message: what the tool is, why it fits this list's scope, and two links (repo and docs).
Expected output: A pitch the maintainer can evaluate in under a minute.
- If they are positive, submit the PR in exactly the list's format.
Expected output: A PR that needs no formatting fixes from the maintainer.
- If they say no, thank them and ask what would change the answer.
Expected output: Either a path to inclusion later or a clean no with no burned bridge.
Provenance
Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst__i5HG4eo4-by7AZsa6pzMQ
Maintainer review
No maintainer verification is recorded for this version.
This records the version a maintainer checked. It does not assert that the version is the latest upstream release.