DEV Community

DEV Help

The latest help documentation, tips and tricks from the DEV Community.

Getting Started with DEV

Welcome to DEV! πŸ¦₯ Here's everything you need to get started:

Creating an Account

Hey, there! We're so happy you're here! Sign up for a DEV account to get started. You can sign up with an account with Apple, GitHub, Twitter/X, or just an email on this page.

Complete your profile by following our welcome sequence and filling out as much information as you can, as this will help us get to know you! Please note that we take a strong stance against collecting unnecessary data on our users as stated on our privacy page.

You can also customize your account preferences to receive the perfect amount of notifications in your inbox, set your experience level, and don't miss out on our newsletter!

Account Settings

You will find your account settings in the top right corner of our toolbar. From there, you can tailor your DEV experience by personalizing your profile, site appearance, ad settings, dark mode, notifications, passwords, privacy preferences, and more.

If you're part of an organization, you can also manage important details like your organization's homepage, member information, and even delete the organization if necessary.

Setting Up an RSS Feed

Set up and customize your RSS feed to stay up to date with your favorite topics and authors at DEV Settings > Extensions.

  1. "In the "Publishing to DEV Community πŸ‘©β€πŸ’»πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’» from RSS" section, input your blog's RSS feed URL.
  2. You'll then have the option to either "Mark the RSS source as canonical URL" or "Replace links with DEV Community links."
  3. Refer to the information provided below (Specifying a Canonical URL) to guide your decision.
  4. Finally, click "submit feed settings" to complete the process. You're all set to follow RSS feeds on DEV!

Use the following links to customize your feed:

  • The link for our main feed can be found here: https://dev.to/feed.
  • For user-specific feeds, you can find them via https://dev.to/feed/<username>.
  • For tag-specific feeds, you can find them via https://dev.to/feed/tag/<tagname>.

Code of Conduct

Please familiarize yourself with DEV's Code of Conduct to ensure a positive and inclusive community experience.

Note that your posts may be subject to removal at the discretion of DEV administrators and moderators if they do not meet the requirements outlined in our Code of Conduct.

Support

For any inquiries or assistance with your account, feel free to reach out to our support team at yo@dev.to. We're here to help!

Common Questions

Q: Who can post to dev.to?

Anyone, no matter where you are in your software development journey, can sign up for an account on DEV, though we have a few asks:

  • You may make a post of any kind as long as it does not violate our Terms and our Code of Conduct.
  • Posts must also meet our community guidelines and make it through common-sense spam filters.

Q: How do I change my Twitter/GitHub username?

You can add or remove Twitter/GitHub associations from your settings, but note that you must have one OAuth method connected to your account at all times.

For example, if you want to remove GitHub, but it's the only OAuth you have connected to your account, you'll need to first add another OAuth method (e.g. Twitter) in order to have the option to remove GitHub.

If you have any issues with this, email yo@dev.to and we can help you out!

Q: How do I delete my account?

You'll find the option to delete your account in your settings. Self-deletion will remove your DEV profile, and all articles, comments, Connect messages, etc.

If you require a full GDPR deletion, please email yo@dev.to with the subject line "GDPR Delete Request" and we will ensure that any of your remaining data is purged from all systems.

Q: Upon sign in, why do you require authorization to allow the DEV Community to access info on my Twitter account?

The authorization page being talked about looks like the following:

A screenshot of the settings page on Twitter for authorizing DEV

This is the default scope for Twitter and to our knowledge we can't get any more granular than this. Here's a picture of our options and what we've chosen:

A screenshot of the settings page on Twitter for authorizing DEV, showing options for Read, Read and Write, Read, Write and Direct Messages

Again, we take a strong stance against collecting unnecessary data on our users as stated on our privacy page.

Q: I signed up to DEV with GitHub/Twitter, but can't figure out how to disconnect or switch out this OAuth method from my account. Can you help me?

The problem you're running into is happening because you must have one OAuth method always connected to your DEV account.Β The easiest way to go about solving this issue is to add another OAuth method to your DEV account.

There are a couple of ways you can approach this:

  1. Firstly, you can add a Forem account to your DEV account by creating one here and then connecting it to your account via your settings.
  2. Once you've done so, you can then disconnect your GitHub/Twitter account from your DEV profile and add your desired account.
  3. Just scroll down underneath the "Danger Zone" and click "Remove GitHub" or "Remove Twitter" (whichever is applicable). After refreshing the page, you'll see the option to add the new account.
  4. If you'd rather not create a Forem account, you can use the same process above but connect a GitHub/Twitter account to your DEV account instead prior to removing the GitHub/Twitter account you'd like to remove.

Alternatively, if you'd rather not connect a GitHub/Twitter account to your DEV account, you can create a new DEV account with your desired OAuth method! After making a new account, please email us at yo@dev.to requesting that we merge your two accounts together. If this is the case, be prepared to prove ownership over both of your accounts.