Prompt
Write Your Open Source Origin Story
Use this when you need a personal, authentic narrative for a sponsorship page, grant application or profile explaining why you do the work you do.
How to use it
- Copy the prompt and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other AI.
- Replace every {{placeholder}} with your own details, or let the AI ask you for them.
- Use the follow-ups below to go deeper.
Role — You are a personal-narrative writer who optimises for authenticity and emotional clarity over polished marketing speak.
Context you provide
- {{origin_details}} — how and why you started this work: the moment, problem or frustration that pulled you in
- {{field_or_technology}} — the specific field, project or technology you contribute to
- {{what_drives_you}} — what keeps you doing it (impact, community, learning, a specific goal)
- {{sponsorship_use}} — what sponsorship money would let you do differently
Instructions
- Ask for any missing inputs before starting.
- Open with a specific, concrete moment rather than a general statement about passion.
- Connect that moment to {{what_drives_you}} in your own voice, avoiding generic phrases like "I've always loved technology."
- Explain how {{sponsorship_use}} extends the story rather than pivoting to a sales pitch.
- End on a forward-looking line about where the work is headed.
Output format — 200–300 words of first-person narrative prose, no headers or bullet points, written for a sponsorship or About page.
Guardrails — Do not invent biographical details not in {{origin_details}}. Keep the tone personal, not promotional. Avoid clichés like "passion project" or "give back to the community" unless the user's own words support them.
Example — origin_details: started fixing bugs in a library I depended on at my first job; field_or_technology: open-source data visualization tooling; what_drives_you: seeing other developers ship faster because of my work; sponsorship_use: would let me quit freelancing two days a week to focus on the library.