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Get Involved

Whether you are a developer, designer, writer, project builder, or just someone passionate about Cardano.

Add your Application

Add your application​

The Cardano applications page is a curated list where users discover what can be built on Cardano. It should feature quality apps that demonstrate the ecosystem's capabilities.

Philosophy: The Cardano applications page is designed to help newcomers to the Cardano ecosystem see what's possible today. We focus on live, functional products on mainnet - not promises, pre-sales, or coming soon pages. We're not trying to map out a future ecosystem, but rather showcase the present reality of what's been built.

Requirements​

Before making a pull request, please make sure that you fulfill all these requirements.

  • Live on Cardano mainnet
  • Functional product with real use case (not just a concept or idea)
  • Stable domain (no temporary/test domains, URL shorteners, or app store links)
  • Clear description without marketing claims like "the best", "the first", "the only"
  • Title is at most 25 characters, ideally 15-20. Concrete and brandable; drop a redundant Cardano prefix unless the bare project name is too generic on its own
  • Must provide unique value distinct from existing showcase items
  • Must have sufficient community reputation
  • Meets a basic design and quality bar: a working UI, real content, and enough polish that a first-time visitor would leave with a positive impression of the Cardano ecosystem

These criteria are also applied retroactively. Apps that go offline, get abandoned, or pivot away from Cardano are removed during quarterly review. See Apps curation policy for the removal triggers and process.

Step-by-Step Process​

  1. Prepare your project screenshot

    Cards on /apps crop to roughly 280×150 px. To look sharp on retina displays without bloating the repo, follow these specs:

    ItemRecommendation
    Resolution1280×720 px (1280 wide, 16:9), downscales cleanly
    Aspect ratio16:9 or 16:10 landscape; anything taller gets cropped on the card
    FormatJPEG (quality 80) for UI screenshots; PNG only when pixel-perfect text or transparency matters; WebP welcome
    File sizeUnder 500 KB (build will fail otherwise; limit enforced by scripts/check-app-screenshots.js)
    Contentthe actual app UI, cropped to the meaningful area. Not a marketing landing page.
    Themeprefer light theme for visual consistency with the grid
    Browser chromeomit URL bar and tabs unless intentional (use a clean window or crop them out)

    One-liner to resize and re-encode an oversized PNG (macOS, ships with sips):

    sips -Z 1280 -s formatOptions 80 -s format jpeg input.png --out your-project-name.jpg

    Equivalent on Linux (with ImageMagick):

    convert input.png -resize 1280x -quality 80 your-project-name.jpg

    Name the file descriptively, lowercase, hyphens (e.g. minswap.jpg, not Screenshot 2026-04-19.png).

  2. Add your screenshot to the repository

    • Place it in: src/data/app-screenshots/your-project-name.jpg

  3. (Optional) Add your project icon/logo

    • Icons are displayed in specialized components like the DEX grid and app lists
    • Supported formats: SVG, PNG, WebP, JPEG
    • Place it in: static/img/app-icons/your-project-name.svg (or .png, .webp, .jpg)
    • Recommended size: Square aspect ratio, minimum 128x128px
    • Use SVG when possible for best quality at all sizes

  4. Add your project entry

    • Edit: src/data/apps.js
    • Add your entry to the END of the Showcases array
    • Use this format:
    Title is identifying

    The detail page URL /apps/<slug> is derived from the title via slugify, so renaming an app's title later changes its slug.

    {
      title: "Your Project Name",
      description: "Brief description of what your project does (120-180 chars; avoid 'best/first/only' claims)",
      tagline: "Multi-pool DEX with deepest liquidity",  // max 60 chars; shown on /apps tiles
      preview: require("./app-screenshots/your-project-name.jpg"),
      icon: "/img/app-icons/your-project-name.svg", // OPTIONAL - for logo display in components
      statsLabel: "yourprojectlabel", // OPTIONAL - for transaction statistics mapping
      website: "https://your-project.com",
      source: "https://github.com/your-org/your-project", // or null if not open-source
      category: "dex",                  // exactly one (see categories below)
      properties: ["opensource"],       // zero or more (see properties below)
      maintainerPick: false,            // leave false; maintainers set this
      beginnerFriendly: false,          // leave false unless verifiably beginner-friendly
      x: "yourproject",                 // OPTIONAL - X (Twitter) handle without @, shown on detail page
    }

  5. Pick exactly one category ⚠️

    Each app has one primary category that answers "what kind of app is this?". Available categories: wallet, dex, lending, marketplace, governance, explorer, pooltool, analytics, minting, bridge, identity, game, distribution, notary, ecosystem, education, other. Use other for thin segments (stablecoins, oracles, payment gateways, music, social) that don't have enough peers to warrant their own category.

    Pick the most specific one. Do not list multiple. If your app legitimately spans two, choose the primary user intent.

  6. Add properties (zero or more)

    Properties are additive flags answering "what does this app also offer?":

    • mobile: first-class native mobile app (not a responsive site)
    • nft: supports or uses NFTs (do not use for image-based NFT collections)
    • opensource: public source repository; you must also fill in source

  7. maintainerPick and beginnerFriendly

    Both default to false for new submissions.

    • maintainerPick: true is set only by page maintainers via the Maintainer picks process.
    • beginnerFriendly: true should only be set if onboarding is genuinely smooth for newcomers (no jargon walls, sensible defaults, working out of the box). Reviewers may push back if this looks promotional.

  8. Optional Fields Explained

    icon field:

    • Path to your logo/icon for display in component grids
    • Must be in /static/img/app-icons/ directory
    • Example: icon: "/img/app-icons/minswap.svg"
    • If omitted, components will show a fallback badge with your app's first letter

    statsLabel field:

    • Used to map your app to transaction statistics data
    • Only needed if your app has on-chain transaction metrics
    • Must match the exact label in /src/data/tx-stats.json
    • See Transaction Rankings Guide for details on getting your app tracked
    • Example: statsLabel: "minswap"
    • If omitted, the system will attempt normalized matching on your title

    x field:

    • X (Twitter) handle for the project, used on the /apps/<slug> detail page and as sameAs in the JSON-LD
    • Just the handle, no @, no URL. Example: x: "MinswapDEX", not "@MinswapDEX" or "https://x.com/MinswapDEX"
    • 1-15 characters, letters, digits, and underscores only (matches X's own handle constraints)
    • The build's schema validator rejects anything else

    spotlight field (set by maintainers):

    • Links to a Developer Spotlight blog post on developers.cardano.org/blog/
    • Renders a callout banner on the app's detail page (/apps/<slug>)
    • Shape: spotlight: { url: "https://developers.cardano.org/blog/...", title: "Spotlight: <App>", date: "YYYY-MM-DD" }
    • All three fields required if set; URL must be http(s)://
    • Submitters: leave omitted. Maintainers add this when a Spotlight is published.

  9. Test your submission

    • Run yarn build (must complete without errors). The schema validator will reject unknown categories or properties.
    • Check that your project displays correctly
    • Verify your icon appears if you added one
    • Ensure category is the most specific match and properties are minimal

  10. Submit your pull request

  • Use the "Add Your App" GitHub PR template
  • Fill out the checklist in the template