Andrea Griffiths
Scaling developer experiences to 150M+ engineers worldwide
About Me
Transforming how enterprise teams adopt and scale developer technologies. As a Senior Developer Advocate at GitHub, I bridge the gap between cutting-edge tools and real-world implementation, helping organizations unlock the full potential of their development workflows.
My decade-plus journey in developer tools encompasses everything from Git workflows and DevOps practices to AI-assisted development. I specialize in translating complex technical concepts into actionable strategies that drive measurable business outcomes—whether that's reducing deployment times, improving security posture, or accelerating time-to-market.
What sets me apart:
My unconventional path from Army service and construction management to software engineering gives me a unique perspective on practical problem-solving. I understand both the technical challenges and the human dynamics that make or break technology adoption in large organizations.
Beyond client work, I'm an active voice in the developer community through conference speaking, technical writing, and creating open source developer tools. I've built projects like Team X-Ray, a VS Code extension that helps developers understand team expertise and collaboration patterns. I believe the best advocacy comes from real-world experience, which is why I stay hands-on with the tools and practices I recommend.
Based in Florida with my Welsh partner, two sons, and two dogs. When I'm not advocating for better developer experiences, you'll find me mentoring emerging talent and contributing to the open source projects that power our industry.
Speaking Events
Catch me at conferences and events around the world
Looking for a speaker? I'd love to speak at your event!
I speak about Developer Experience, AI in Development, DevOps, GitHub, and Developer Advocacy.
Invite me to speakFeatured Projects
Open source tools I've created to solve real developer problems and enhance team collaboration.
Agent Context System
Open SourceContext engineering fundamentals for AI coding agents
Two markdown files that give every AI coding agent — and every subagent — shared project knowledge and session-to-session memory. AGENTS.md is your project's committed source of truth, always in the agent's prompt. .agents.local.md is your personal scratchpad, gitignored, growing as the agent logs what it learns. No plugins, no infrastructure — just files that work across every major coding agent.
Key Features
- Cross-platform: works with Cursor, Copilot, Codex, Windsurf, Factory, and Claude Code
- Session-to-session memory via gitignored scratchpad that agents update automatically
- Instruction budget discipline — root file stays under 120 lines for optimal agent compliance
- Knowledge promotion pathway from personal scratchpad to shared project context
- Subagent-aware design — shared context for parallel agents that don't inherit conversation history
Technologies
Annotation Overlay
Open SourceDraw over anything on your screen
A desktop app that lets you annotate directly on your screen during presentations, live demos, and screen sharing — without switching windows or apps. Toggle drawing mode with a keyboard shortcut, annotate, then let clicks pass through to whatever is underneath.
Key Features
- Pen, rectangle, arrow, highlighter, and eraser drawing tools
- Multi-display support with seamless annotation across screens
- Screenshot capture composites your annotations over the desktop
- System tray integration and global keyboard shortcuts
- Cross-platform: macOS, Windows, and Linux
Technologies
Git History Cleaner
Open SourceSafe git history management made simple
A web-based tool that helps developers generate customized bash scripts for clearing Git repository history while preserving current files. Features a user-friendly interface with built-in safety checks, automatic backup creation, and plain English explanations for each Git command.
Key Features
- Safe script generation with automatic backup commands
- Plain English explanations for each Git operation
- Multiple output formats: clipboard copy, .sh download, inline viewing
- Input validation and repository name sanitization
- Customizable branch names and safety options
- Educational UX that emphasizes user responsibility
Technologies
Open Source Best Practices
Open SourceA comprehensive framework for launching and hardening sustainable open source projects
An 8-phase framework designed for developers preparing projects for public release or improving existing repositories. Covers security (git history cleaning), legal and ownership, community governance, documentation, infrastructure setup, maintainer expectations, vulnerability reporting, and funding sustainability.
Key Features
- 8-phase launch framework from security audit to funding sustainability
- File checklists for LICENSE, CONTRIBUTING, CODE_OF_CONDUCT, and SECURITY.md
- Governance structures and maintainer role definitions
- GitHub Sponsors setup and funding sustainability guidance
- Compatible with GitHub Copilot, Claude, and agentic AI workflows
Technologies
Recent Talks
Teaching Millions to Code: Quincy Larson on 10 Years of freeCodeCamp
An inspiring conversation with Quincy Larson, founder of freeCodeCamp, exploring how the world's largest free coding education platform has helped over 400,000 people land developer jobs and what's next for tech education in an AI-powered landscape.
View Presentation →The AI Teammate Is Here — Now What?
Exploring how engineering teams are adapting to AI collaboration, addressing the practical challenges of managing hybrid human-AI workflows and preserving code quality as AI becomes a larger contributor.
View Presentation →When AI Agents Go Rogue: Securing the New Attack Surface
Exploring emerging security risks as AI agents gain autonomous capabilities and system access, including new attack vectors, malicious threats, and GitHub's approach to building secret scanning directly into AI tool calls.
View Presentation →Mona's Lucky Draw: Building a GitHub Commenter Raffle with Next.js and GitHub Copilot
Watch a basic Next.js app evolve into an engaging GitHub commenter raffle system.
View Presentation →Open Source Friday Special: AI's Role Shaping Developer Tools
A dynamic conversation straight from GitHub Universe! Featuring Justin Cormack (CTO, Docker) and Ron Efroni (CEO & Co-founder, Flox.dev) as they explore how AI is transforming the developer landscape.
View Presentation →The new OSS community: Enabling for advocates not customers
Built and maintained by people like you, open source software powers the global economy. Sustainability of this ecosystem is pivotal to accelerate human progress; yet many organizations focus their community building efforts as a sales pipeline, or a program to deflect requests for support.
View Presentation →Featured Writings
How to use GitHub Copilot Spaces to debug issues faster
Follow this step-by-step guide to learn how to debug your issues using GitHub Copilot Spaces and Copilot coding agent.
Read Article →“The local-first rebellion”: How Home Assistant became the most important project in your house
Learn how one of GitHub’s fastest-growing open source projects is redefining smart homes without the cloud.
Read Article →Level up design-to-code collaboration with GitHub’s open source Annotation Toolkit
Prevent accessibility issues before they reach production. The Annotation Toolkit brings clarity, compliance, and collaboration directly into your Figma workflow.
Read Article →How to find, install, and manage MCP servers with the GitHub MCP Registry
Learn how to bring structure and security to your AI ecosystem with the GitHub MCP Registry, the single source of truth for managing and governing MCP servers.
Read Article →How GitHub Copilot and AI agents are saving legacy systems
GitHub Copilot and AI agents are making legacy COBOL systems accessible to modern developers.
Read Article →GitHub Copilot CLI: How to get started
Discover how to use GitHub Copilot directly in the terminal. From cloning a repository to opening a pull request, here’s how to streamline your workflow with Copilot CLI.
Read Article →Get in Touch
Interested in collaborating or have questions? Feel free to reach out via email.
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Whether you want to discuss developer advocacy, collaboration opportunities, or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you.
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