Brand platform

All aspects of what we do, what we sound like, what’s most important to us, come together to form our brand platform. At its center is our core story, or brand position. Every piece of this platform is influenced by the others. For example, our value of being dev-first is reflected in our voice which is always clear and dev-y. We offer a code intelligence platform, a tool for saving devs time so they can ideate more (accelerating technological progress), which demonstrates our purpose of innovation, and is reflected in our inspiring personality.

This platform was based on outcomes from our 2022 Brand Sprint Workshop. Watch the video below for more context.

Every style treatment defined in our brand guide–from typeface, to color, to illustrations–is carefully chosen to visually represent our brand platform. Below you’ll find a breakdown of each facet of our brand platform.

Our what, how, and why

What do we make? A code intelligence platform. How do we do it? By making it really easy to explore, understand, find, and reuse code. Lastly, and most importantly, why do we do this? To accelerate widespread technological progress. We want to make it so everyone can code, but ultimately, we are trying to bring about technological progress that isn’t just reserved for the big companies.

Our brand values

These are the most important values for Sourcegraph. These apply at every level of our organization—individuals, teams, and Sourcegraph as a whole–and serve as guiding principles in everything we do.

  • Developer-first. Sourcegraph at its core is built by devs, for devs. These are our customers and we prioritize working with data that supports them vs opinions.

  • High-agency. Everyone at Sourcegraph has the power and the responsibility to improve Sourcegraph as a company and as a product.

  • Transparency. We are an open company. Being open and transparent builds trust with our customers and within our team.

Read more about our values in the handbook.

Our personality

If Sourcegraph was a person, how would we describe them?

  • Serious. While we love a good meme and taking a moment to have fun, we are serious about changing the world. Folks can trust that we are a solid source of knowledge and leading the charge against Big Code problems.

  • Unconventional. We don’t cater to the mainstream consumer, we cater to devs. We don’t just do what’s always been done. We opt to go against the grain when it’s for the best. Innovation, after all, is central to our mission.

  • Subtly inspiring. Devs are the heroes of our story, so we prefer to shine a spotlight on their work, to inspire and delight with intention, rather than dress it up in flashy tactics for the sake of it. Because of this, we connect with one another on a more genuine, human level.

  • Accessible (in every sense). We want to democratize code for everyone, so we strive to be fully accessible in every sense of the word. Come to us with questions and ideas for how things can be better.

Our voice

Our voice attributes guide how we speak to each other and our customers. Our voice is informed by our purpose—because we believe in large scale accessibility and transparency in code, we chose attributes that reflect those values. Tone may change based on context, but our voice should always be consistent. Our voice is always clear, professional, humble, and dev-y.

Clear

  • Be clear and concise
  • Avoid “fluff” and filler words
  • Be precise and logical

Professional

  • Be conversational, but not silly
  • Speak with confidence
  • Demonstrate expertise

Humble

  • Be empathetic
  • Be authentic
  • Speak to, not down, to our audience

Dev-y

  • Lean into the jargon
  • Go down the rabbit holes
  • Show your passion

See also “Voice and tone” in our content guidelines.