groups

Hackertrain Groups

A repository to coordinate HackerTrain groups to individual events.

Please see our webpage and maybe the organisation repo for context. And come chat with us via Matrix: #hackertrain:kompot.si or via IRC: #hackertrain on Libera.Chat (both are bridged together).

General idea and how to use

Each event has a project board which tracks the forming groups.

Each group has an issue that is on the respective board and whose description provides the info about the board. Basically, the issue serves as a simple forum thread.

The issues can be “subscribed”, so even people who don't write anything can get notifications about any changes.

Also, each group should have an organizer to coordinate the group (e.g. to coordinate the meeting on the train, arrange the train booking, if any).

(There are some known issues about permissions, so please do ask in case you need to have something done and aren't allowed to do that or just don't know how!)

Project (Kanban) columns

As a groups’s organization progresses, please move it from left to right through the (Kanban) board, so the column matches the current state of the group.

This also means that you can start a group even if you are currently the only one going and are unsure anyone else would be going, let alone volunteer to lead – in fact, that is the desired workflow! As the names imply, the “looking for participants” and “looking for organizer(s)” columns are intended exactly as a signal for others to chime in, so the group grows.

Labels

When you crate a new issue, it will auto-assign the meta/new tag to indicate that this is a freshly made issue and as such may still be missing information. Once the group or organizer feels the issue has enough detail that it is useful to rely on, please remove that label.

It is important to use an appropriate event/* label (e.g. event/fosdem-2026).

Once you know which countries you will travel through (and the train stops there), please use the according via/* labels, so others who are looking for a route can more easily find it.

Searching for a route

To find if a route that suits you already exists, the easiest is to go to the issues view and there filter for:

• the event/* label of the event you are going to – e.g. event/fosdem-2026
• the via/* label of the country you intend to start your travel from – e.g. via/AT🇦🇹

In the above example that would result in all the planned routes that are going through Austria to FOSDEM 2026.

What’s up with the animals?

In the original HackerTrain β run almost no-one knew each-other, so we used a plush duck 🦆 in the train’s gangway to indicate where the group was. This worked extremely well and was fun!

So if you are organizing a route, we suggest you use a plush animal (or other physical object that is easy to see on a train and in a crowd) when you meet in person on the train. If so, we suggest you use a similar emoji in the issue name, so your group can easily find its issue.

Internal: how to add an Event

• Create the project board and relevant labels in the issue tracker
• Copy and tweak the issue templates to provide a simple way to add labels to the events
• Edit .forgejo/issue_template/config.yml to provide a link to the per-event guide/CfP
• Maybe something I forgot?