Community Pieces

Community pieces are user-created integrations that extend the functionality of a platform. In Activepieces, community pieces are contributions made by users and developers that can be shared with others through the Marketplace, giving the ecosystem more flexibility and variety.

What Is Community Pieces?

Community pieces are add-ons or modules developed by users rather than the platform’s core team. They are built to fill gaps, address niche needs, or provide integrations that may not be officially supported yet.

The term comes from open-source and community-driven development, where collective contributions shape the growth of a project.

In the world of automation, community pieces mean that no platform is limited to its original set of integrations. Instead, users and developers can continuously add new ones, keeping the ecosystem vibrant and up to date.

In Activepieces, community pieces are central to the platform’s identity as an open-source project. Users can create new pieces using the TypeScript SDK and share them with others.

Once published to the Marketplace, these pieces become available for anyone to install and use in their flows.

How Do Community Pieces Work?

Community pieces work by combining developer tools with a sharing framework. In Activepieces, this process looks like:

• Development: A user or developer creates a new piece using the SDK provided by Activepieces. This piece defines the triggers and actions needed to connect with a specific application or service.
• Testing: The piece is tested locally or within a self-hosted environment to ensure it works correctly.
• Contribution: The developer submits the piece to the Activepieces ecosystem, often through GitHub or the Marketplace submission process.
• Review: The contribution may be reviewed for quality, security, and usability before being listed.
• Distribution: Once approved, the piece is added to the Marketplace, where other users can install it directly.

This workflow enables rapid growth of integrations, since the community can collectively expand the platform beyond what the core team alone could build.

Why Are Community Pieces Important?

Community pieces are important because they create an ecosystem that scales faster and adapts better to user needs. Instead of waiting for official updates, the community can build what it needs and share it with others.

The importance of community pieces can be broken down into key benefits:

• Rapid innovation: Users build integrations for new tools or services quickly, keeping the platform current.
• Niche support: Community developers create pieces for specialized or less common tools that may not be a priority for the core team.
• Ecosystem growth: The number of available integrations grows exponentially as more users contribute.
• Shared knowledge: Developers share their expertise and solutions, making automation more accessible for everyone.
• Open-source synergy: Community pieces embody the collaborative spirit of open-source projects like Activepieces.

For Activepieces, community pieces make the difference between being a closed product and being a dynamic ecosystem. By empowering users to create and share, the platform ensures long-term adaptability and relevance.

Common Use Cases

Community pieces can be found across many industries and workflows. Common examples include:

• Business automation: A user develops a piece for a regional CRM and shares it, enabling others in that market to use it.
• Marketing: A marketer builds a piece for a new social media platform and contributes it so campaigns can be automated.
• Customer support: A developer creates a piece to connect with a niche helpdesk system, filling a gap in the Marketplace.
• AI workflows: Community members contribute pieces for emerging AI models, ensuring the platform integrates with the latest technology.
• Operations: Teams create internal pieces for custom apps, then share them with other organizations facing similar challenges.

These examples show how community pieces allow Activepieces to meet diverse needs quickly and effectively.

FAQs About Community Pieces

What are community pieces in automation?

Community pieces are integrations developed by users and shared with others. They extend the functionality of an automation platform by adding new triggers and actions that may not exist in the official library.

Why are community pieces valuable?

They are valuable because they accelerate the growth of the ecosystem. By allowing users to create and share, the platform gains more integrations, covers niche use cases, and stays up to date with new technologies.

How does Activepieces support community pieces?

Activepieces provides developer tools like the TypeScript SDK and an open-source framework that makes it easy to build new pieces. These contributions can then be shared with the wider community through the Marketplace, giving all users access to expanded functionality.

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