Picture this

Who it is for

A ten-year-old open source project has founders burning out. Elder Council selects advisors by verified tenure and contribution history, rotates seats every term, and records every advice note so knowledge outlives any single person.

Two ways to own it

What you get

Base$179

$45 deposit to reserve

Tenure scoring from GitHub or attestations, seat rotation, advice notes archive, council page.

You choose: chain
You choose: name and logo
You choose: accent color
You choose: term length

Customfrom $1,200

Built around you

Reshape it entirely: new features, your flows, your brand end to end, integrations you need. We scope it with you.

Everything in Base
Custom features and design
Priority build

Why it is new

What exists today, and what this does differently

What is new

Rotating accountable councils exist per-DAO; a packaged tool for small communities was not found.

Closest things out there

Gitcoin Steward Council uses term limits, Olympus proposed confidence votes for its council, and Orca documents recall votes, all as bespoke governance not off-the-shelf tools.

Checked with web searches in October 2026. A search is not proof that nothing similar exists, and the market moves fast, so we recheck before every build.

What it unlocks

The human in it

Mines your longevity and wisdom.

The Regatta Board

Races it can enter

hackathon · ETHGlobal · rolling

ETHGlobal Continuity Track

Offered at select 2026 events (reported for ETHGlobal New York 2026); per-event

Official page ↗

Existing open-source repos allowed; judged on work added during event

Their rule on existing code: Existing open-source repos allowed; judged on work added during the event. Exact diff/disclosure rules unknown

What you own

The whole app, not a starter kit.

The complete Elder Council app: a community seats a rotating council by verified tenure, asks it questions, and keeps every signed answer and dissent in a searchable book, with a paywall built in.

Base price · $179

The user app, complete

Every buyer gets the same finished app. Basic branding and copy changes come through a quick form.

Three step onboardingHome

Shown once: seats are earned, nobody sits forever, every answer goes in the book. Picks email, Matrix or Discord.

Council status and next actionHome

Who sits this term, the latest note, your tenure and one clear primary action.

Ask the councilAsk

Topic, question and context go to seated advisors, who answer in their own words.

Signed notes with dissentAsk

The clerk drafts, advisors sign, dissent is kept word for word; the hash is attested on Optimism.

Private draft questionsAsk

Polish a sensitive question with one advisor first. Gated behind Council.

The searchable bookBook

Search, topic and dissent filters, full notes with signers, cite a note in a pull request.

Monthly page and exportsBook

First Tuesday digest (Council) and full book export as PDF and JSON (Foundation).

Round table and open scoresCouncil

Seats drawn live, every score with its inputs and the reason anyone is not seated.

Recall votesCouncil

Quiet seats go to the next eligible contributor at the charter's threshold. Gated behind Council.

Personal tenure pathTenure

Score against the last seat, review rotation, GitHub to wallet attestation, offline service (Foundation).

Plans, receipts and settingsMe

Plans from the owner paywall via USDC checkout, onchain and offchain receipts, channels, share card.

Open the full app demo

Add-on

Owner console

Your admin side: revenue, paywall editor, users, rules and the agent log.

Revenue and paywall editorRevenue

MRR, incoming USDC, payouts, payment methods and live editing of tier names, prices, seats and unlocks.

Community approvals and score challengesProjects

Approve or decline councils, see clerk flags, resolve challenges that rescore contributors.

Charter rulesRules

Seats, term, weighting, minimum years, recall threshold, commit cap, rest rule, newcomer seat, gas and digest.

Clerk log and roadmapClerk

Close a term, see what the agent did and where it held back; priced roadmap requests.

Top-up

Growth and referrals

Referral and growth mechanics, switched on when you are ready to grow.

Growth loops and cohortsGrowth

README council badge, monthly page citations and sister project invites, with cohort retention.

The money path, built in

How it earns for you

Advisors and contributors never pay and money never buys a seat. Communities pay monthly for bigger councils and the tools around the book.

CircleFreeUp to 3 seats, one repo, tenure scoring, the public book

Council$29 a monthUp to 9 seats, recall votes, monthly digest, private drafts

Foundation$199 a monthMany projects, offline service attestations, exports of the whole book

Attestations cost under $0.01 on Optimism and can be sponsored by the owner. Clerk model cost is roughly $3 to $15 a term.

Prices are yours to set. Illustrative, not a promise of income.

Growth loops, built in

How it spreads

Council badge in every README linking to the public council page
Monthly page from the book, cited in pull requests
Sister project invites with a free month of Council for both
Share card: our founder stepped back and the project got wiser

Roadmap · build the next phase with us

Where it goes next

v1 included

The full council app

Tenure scoring with open inputs
Charter, rotation and recall
Ask flow with signed notes and dissent
Searchable book, receipts, paywall

Included

Federation and offline service

One council advising many repos
GitLab, Gitea and Weblate sources
Offline service attestations by organisers
Matrix and Discord clerk bots

Add-on from $500

A shared library of wisdom

Cross project search of every book
Citable note IDs for docs and RFCs
Council templates for co-ops and clubs
Grant ready governance reports

Add-on from $1,200

For investors and grant reviewers

The pitch, ready

A rotating council of a community's longest-serving members, picked from verifiable history, with every piece of advice kept.

Problem: Long-lived open source projects and communities rely on a few founders who carry ten years of context. They burn out, and when they leave the reasons behind past decisions leave too.

Solution: Score tenure from public reviews and mentoring, seat a council that rotates each term, and keep every signed note and dissent in a searchable book with hashes attested onchain.

Why now: Cheap attestations on Optimism, Arbitrum and Base, email wallets, and mid-tier models that can draft agendas without editing what people sign.

Market: Open source projects, small DAOs, co-ops and clubs that have outgrown one founder, plus the foundations and grant programs that fund them.

The ask: Pilot partners: three long-lived open source projects and one co-op, plus public goods funding such as Gitcoin or Optimism RetroPGF.

Funding is never guaranteed. Check each program's rules.

For hackathons and demo days

Your 2 minute demo

Home: Tuesday night in Krakow. Halina's council is in session; Kwame opens the app.
Ask: Kwame asks whether to drop the old tile format. Advisors answer, one dissent is kept, the note is signed.
Book: search the book, open a note with its dissent, cite it in a pull request.
Council: the round table and open scores; recall and extra seats are locked behind Council, upgrade with USDC.
Tenure: Kwame joins review rotation and links GitHub, and sees his path to a seat.
Owner Rules: turn off the commit cap and watch the bot climb; reserve a newcomer seat and Kwame sits.
Owner Revenue: change the Council price and seats, then preview the plans sheet in the user app.
Owner Clerk and Roadmap: close a term, read the log, request the v2 federation build.

Many hackathons require code written at the event. See the Regatta Boardfor each race's rule.

Make it entirely yours

Custom work from $1,000: your own tenure sources, a branded council page, integrations with GitLab, Discourse or a co-op membership system, extra languages. Scoped on a call.

Custom from $1,200

BLUEPRINT

Why it matters and how it really works

The need

Long-lived open source projects and communities rely on a few founders who carry ten years of context. They burn out, and when they leave, the reasons behind past decisions leave with them.

What exists and what is new

Rotating, accountable councils exist as bespoke governance: Gitcoin's Steward Council uses term limits, Olympus proposed confidence votes for its council, and Orca documents council recall votes. These are custom setups inside large DAOs. A packaged, off-the-shelf tool for small communities that scores tenure from verifiable history, rotates seats and archives advice was not found in research. Verdict: rare, medium novelty.

The data it runs on

Git and code review history (GitHub or GitLab APIs), mentoring signals such as answered issues, optional attestations of offline service, the charter, seat rosters, attendance, and signed advice notes with dissent.

1.The mission

Turn a community's longest-serving members into a rotating, accountable council, so wisdom is shared and outlives any one person.

2.Why people can't resist it

A seat you earned Seats come from years of reviews and mentoring, visible to all, not from popularity or money.

Rest is built in Rotation means founders step back on schedule, without guilt, and newer elders step up.

The book Every piece of advice is kept with its dissent, so newcomers read the why before they ask.

3.How it works for real

Identity: Contributors sign in with GitHub via OAuth and link a wallet through Privy; the link is attested with EAS on Optimism, Arbitrum or Base.

Tenure scoring: An indexer pulls commits, reviews and issue replies, caps commits per week, weighs reviews and mentoring, and publishes each score with its inputs for open review.

Charter contract: A small contract stores seats, term length, minimum tenure, rest rule and recall threshold, and records each roster as an attestation.

Clerk agent: A mid-tier model (Claude Sonnet or GPT-4o class) drafts agendas and summaries; the signed note itself cannot be edited by the agent, and dissent is a separate field.

Advice archive: Notes are signed by advisors, stored on IPFS, and their hash attested onchain, with a searchable site for the community.

Notifications: Email and chat digests (Discord or Matrix bots) for sessions, recall votes and the monthly page from the book.

4.Cost per use and pricing

Per term for a 40-contributor project: indexing via GitHub API is free within rate limits; scoring and summaries are about 1M tokens a term on a mid-tier model, roughly $3 to $15. Attestations and roster updates on an L2 are cents. Hosting about $10 a month. Example year: under $100.

Circle Free

Up to 3 seats, one repo, public archive.

Council $29 a month

Up to 9 seats, many repos, recall votes, digests, private drafts.

Foundation $199 a month

Many projects, custom tenure sources, offline service attestations and exports.

5.Growth loop

Advice notes are cited in pull requests and shared publicly; other maintainers see the council page and badge, and adopt it for their own projects.

6.Risks and guardrails

Gaming tenure: Commit farming is capped, reviews weigh more, and minimum years apply. Scores are public for challenge.

Exclusion: Tenure favours early members; charters can reserve a seat for newer contributors and count mentoring.

Authority creep: Advice is advice: maintainers still decide. The charter states this and notes are labelled.

Privacy: Only public contribution data is scored; private discussions are never published.

Agent errors: Summaries once dropped a dissent; now dissent is stored separately and signed notes are immutable.

7.Build order

GitHub sign-in and wallet link attestation
Tenure indexer with public score breakdown
Charter settings and roster attestation
Session flow with signed advice notes and dissent
Recall vote and next-eligible seating
Searchable archive and monthly digest

8.Where this is going

Now
One ten-year-old project seats its first rotating council.
Next
Small DAOs, co-ops and clubs use the same charter and archive.
Later
Advice notes become a shared, citable library of community wisdom across projects.
The world we want
No community depends on one tired founder, and hard-won knowledge is passed on, not lost.

Costs and tools are estimates at the time of writing. General information only, not legal or financial advice.

OWNER PLAYBOOK

Own it, then chart your voyage

Nine routes from one vessel. Tap a port to open its chart.

Why own Elder Council

Elder Council turns a community's longest serving members into a rotating, accountable advisory council, chosen by verified tenure and contribution, with every advice note archived. If you use a generic governance tool, the knowledge and the council record live on someone else's platform. Own it, and the tenure scoring, the seat rotation and the archive that outlives any one founder belong to your community and your wallet.