---
# System prepended metadata

title: '**Alchemist Builders Onboarding Guide**'

---

# **Alchemist Builders Onboarding Guide**

## Vision

So you think you got what it takes to become an alchemist, to walk the path of the Great Work which might lead you to trails never taken, territories unexplored - like the greatest alchemist of our times - a famous psychiatrist Carl Jung said: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious"

Within the alchemist labs the experiments are focused on exploring highly technical concepts in an attempt to discover the ingredients required to properly synthesize the Philosophers Stone - for example designing the Mint a Crucible NFT experience or the mistX Gasless DEX. 

Beside technical experimentation our guild has grown into a decentralised safe haven where the weary scholars can feel comfortable, at ease and safe. Creative projects like building the Alchemist Radio or finding the right art direction for the Crucible NFT are just some of the endless examples of outcomes from the Alchemists playing around with some beakers and funnels in their down time.

In general, we follow the guiding principles dear to the alchemists since the epoch of the Emerald Tablet in order to effectively create value in every process - all the active participants have internalized this mindset, so that we basically share an equally polarized vision:

- Focus on value
- Start where you are
- Progress iteratively with feedback
- Collaborate and promote visibility
- Think and work holistically
- Keep it simple and practical
- Optimize and automate

For more details please read this [article](https://hackmd.io/@alchemistcoin/rJnNpIFwu)

## Compliance & Ethic

We are open-minded and welcome everyone who wants to join us and actively participate in the discovery of the Elixir of Life. Alchemist guild has no limits or regulations that would limit our growth potential. There is no company, developer or a dark puppet master behind the scenes pulling the strings.
Our community grows day by day and leads the project into new -  now unimagined spheres. As a decentralized organization, from our point of view it is important to agree on ethics and common rules of conduct. We agreed to follow these rules:

- Be respectful to each other
- No racism, sexism, agitation or activity that brings harm to the community
- No inappropriate language or content

## Hierachy

Our hierarchy is clearly defined and relatively flat. Our Multi-Sig Signers & Senior Alchemists as well as @thegostep as the founder represent the leadership & simultaneous supervision for Alchemist itself. In addition to goals, milestones and timelines, they also set the basic direction so that Alchemist creates the greatest possible value to ensure a bright future to itself.

Next comes the builder group with members from different fields of expertise. On the one hand, of course, there are developers on board who primarily take care of the concept, architecture and the implementation of one or several projects. The builder group does not only consist of developers but scholars from all walks of life - marketing experts, artists and some extremely committed community members. Everyone who wishes to actively participate is part of the builder group. Regardless of the existing skills a lively, constructive exchange in Discord or in other tools such as Basecamp is appreciated. The builder role will enable users to view sensitive technical concepts and products under development in the alchemist labs.

In order to keep the teams of builders focused on their transmutations a new role was created - the apprentice. This role gives young alchemists still trying to find their way  access to a lot of the experiments going on in the lab, but protects them from territory involving advanced alchemy that might result in accidentally blowing up half the building. The “builder” role will evolve to serve as the next step for the apprentice once they’ve mastered the full technical side of alchemical experimentation.

The fourth group are the "regular" community members and certified alchemists, who are mostly made up of $Mist and / or crucible holders. The community plays a major role for us - cooperation, revealing widespread sentiments and provides valuable feedback in relation to existing products and services as well as food for thought for further experiments. We appreciate everyone who found their way to us and like to let them feel comfortable as much as possible in our community.





<!--
## Current Projects

#### Crucible
The crucible represents the starting point of the entire organization. The Crucible and Aludel Reward programs have already been published. However, both the front end (UI) and other use cases in the back end are continuously being developed. If you have heard of Alchemist but not the Crucible, please take a look at the numerous [guides and FAQs](https://hackmd.io/@alchemistcoin) available.

[Alchemist Github](https://github.com/alchemistcoin/alchemist)

#### mistX

MistX Value
Dex Users
As a user placing a trade on a decentralized exchange I want to keep the initial value I discovered for the trade rather than lose it to transaction costs and/or miners front-running my transactions. I want to have a tolerance range involving slippage on my trades rather than deal with unpredictable gas fees and I want to complete my trades with a minimal amount of Ethereum wallet interactions.

Community
As a community operating a gasless DEX we want to monopolize DEX transaction flows and leverage them to arbitrage trades that other actors cannot see by sending them privately to a web server that bundles them into blocks, finds miner extracted value (MEV), and then sends them to miners through a direct connection. We then want to redistribute the resulting value back to MistX users who submitted trades by eliminating their transaction cost and to the greater Alchemist (:alembic:) community by further enriching their rewards pool.

MistX MVP Goal
As a way to validate our architecture, UX, and general assumptions we want to build a v1 of MistX that leverages Uniswap's liquidity for the ETH/Alchemist (:alembic:) pair and provides the user with an interface where the user pays for settlement through slippage rather than gas. Slippage must be sufficient to cover the "Fast" transactions category as defined at the time by Gas Now.

#### Copper

Copper is a fork of Balancer specifically emphasizing liquidity bootstrapping pools. We think that Alchemist had a particularly good model for it when it launched, but that experience can be made a lot more intuitive and friendly to participants

Goal: Copper makes it easy for new crypto projects to perform fair launches for their token by adding transparency to the liquidity bootstrapping process which focuses on the crowdfunding participants’ user experience, interests, and information parity.
-->




## Tools 

### Discord

#### General
Discord is a VoIP, instant messaging and digital distribution platform designed for creating communities. Users communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers". Servers are a collection of persistent chat rooms and voice chat channels. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Linux, and in web browsers. As of December 2020, the service has over 140 million monthly active users.

#### How we use it
Discord is our preferred communication tool, as it provides a fast, uncomplicated and sustainable solution for conversations - be it in writing or acoustically. We differentiate in 2 categories - Community & Builder. While the community is open to every alchemist, the builder has his own isolated area apart from distraction.
The builder area is divided into different projects or topics, but is basically open to every builder and is intended to encourage participation.

#### Links: [Alchemist Discord](http://discord.alchemist.wtf/)

### Basecamp

#### General
Basecamp is a project management app that you can access in your browser and on your phone. It gives you the tools you need to set up to-dos, a schedule, create and upload documents and files, message and chat with your colleagues, and check in regularly with your group—all in one place!

Whether you are working alone and need to get organized with your work or use it to collaborate on a project, with work or something personal, Basecamp makes it easy. It’s quick to set up and if you are consistent in using it it should make communication with your team a lot easier. Especially teams that are virtual.

#### How we use it
Basecamp is the place where we collect, develop and map all projects. A more precise allocation of tasks and responsibilities are also carried out, as well as transcripts of calls and meetings. It is primarily used to provide an overview if you and especially the multisig-signers, senior alchemists, and builders involved, want to look at a project as a whole.

### Github

#### General
GitHub is a web-based version-control and collaboration platform for software developers. GitHub facilitates social coding by providing a web interface to the Git code repository and management tools for collaboration. GitHub can be thought of as a serious social networking site for software developers. Members can follow each other, rate each other's work, receive updates for specific projects and communicate publicly or privately. 

#### How we use it

#### Links: [Alchemist Github](https://github.com/alchemistcoin/alchemist)

### Linear App

#### General
Linear helps streamline software projects, sprints, tasks, and bug tracking. It's built for high-performance teams. It's directly connected to Github.

#### How we use it
Linear is primarily used by us to document developer-relevant issues, problems and / or hurdles that arise during the architecture and processing of individual tasks (previously defined in the Basecamp) and ultimately to provide solutions or workarounds.
Thus, Linear represents the tool, which breaks down individual tasks transparently and in detail for technical topics. Tracking tasks on Github.

#### Links

### Figma

#### General
Figma is a cloud-based design tool that is similar to Sketch in functionality and features, but with big differences that make Figma better for team collaboration. For those skeptical of such claims, we’ll explain how Figma simplifies the design process and is more effective than other programs at helping designers and teams work together efficiently.

#### How we use it
Figma is mainly used by us to share creative content and work on it together. These can be, for example, UI-relevant design drafts, but also initial designs of community projects of any kind - an example here would be designs for one-pagers. Especially when it comes to design decisions, as these are often influenced by personal taste, in our opinion they should first be shared before they are published.

#### Links: [Alchemist Figma]()

## Meeting Calender

You can find our shared calendar [here](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/2/r?cid=c29sYm9mcWlnZGQzbzdzY3E3cWdyN3R2b2NAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ). All dates are included, be they project-related or generally interesting for the entire organization. Meetings are essential to question individual approaches and to discuss them in a team. A transcript will then be written out of sustainability in the base camp. Since the participants are spread all over the world, the times are usually chosen so that as many as possible can take part.

## Routines to Achieve Transparency

In a decentralized team it is sometimes difficult to get an overview of who contributed what and how often. To counteract this, we decided to introduce some routines to promote transparency and visibility even for builders & senior alchemists who are not directly involved in the project.

### Builder Stand Up

To make the process more transparent for everyone, we're creating a # builders-standup channel that we want to encourage active project contributors to post updates to regularly. What did you last work on and what progress did you make? What are you currently working on? What blockers / issues did you run into since your last update and do you need help with anything?

We also want to encourage you to push all your WIP branches to GitHub frequently, and especially on Thursdays, so that Senior Alchemists have a better idea on how to calculate the stipend distribution for the week

### Participation on Scheduled Meetings

As already described under the topic "Meeting Calendar", we appreciate the lively exchange in the team on current topics. The easiest and most uncomplicated way to do this is always the spoken word. Regular participation is therefore essential for several reasons at the same time - finding quick solutions, bundling several opinions on certain topics, finding a majority approach and promoting integrity. If it is not possible that you cannot participate in principle or as an exception, let your team know and then take the transcript (Basecamp) to stay up to date.

### Communication and Tool Interactions

We have various tools in use, which we of course also want to use so that we can recognize progress for our set expectations. The work done should be in focus either way. The communication of small or large milestones is often relevant for the entire project, even if this is not always necessarily visible at first glance, and should therefore be in Basecamp (Project Management), Linear (developer), Figma (artist) and / or can be found in the Discord. We would therefore like to encourage you to communicate a lot and actively via one of the channels made available to you.

## Feedback

We would like to support you with your onboarding as a builder and have therefore incorporated fixed feedback discussions in the initial phase. A senior alchemist or a builder colleague will answer your questions after your first overview and assign you a starting point. The aim of the conversation is to clear up ambiguities and to answer questions of all kinds, so that you can be as much a part of your project as possible from the beginning.

Another feedback appointment is then set after about 2 weeks, when we would like to know in particular how well you have settled and how symptom-free you have been able to contribute your strengths to the value of the project. We also try to optimize our onboarding process through feedback that you give us.

## The Builders' Stipend

Once the development efforts begin, the Senior Alchemists start allocating a builders’ stipend to distribute among the project’s actively contributing team members. The stipend comes from a finite pool of $MIST and is distributed weekly based on what the Senior Alchemists deem to be the most beneficial allocation for nourishing the project’s growth. It is subject to change with every payout, but the Senior Alchemists will usually give a rough justification for why the funds were distributed in a particular manner.

The builders stipend is here to make it easy for you to put aside other distractions and focus on building with the rest of the Alchemists. It is not a salary. It is not meant to be the primary incentive to drive your contributions. If you’re here as a mercenary and just want to get paid then you’re probably in the wrong community.

## Onboarding Form
To take part in the onboarding process, please fill out this [form](https://dzd671syme2.typeform.com/to/YUBB53J8)! 

<br>

**Official Community Links**
* [Alchemist.wtf](http://alchemist.wtf)
* [Alchemist.farm](https://alchemist.farm)
* [Official Guides](https://hackmd.io/@alchemistcoin) [(Book Version)](https://hackmd.io/@alchemistcoin/HyJXT7tL_)
* [Twitter](https://twitter.com/_alchemistcoin)
* [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/qWQQMMKjKe)
* [Telegram](https://t.me/alchemistcoin) [(Web Version)](https://web.telegram.org/#/im?p=@alchemistcoin)
* [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/thealchemistcoin/)








