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shepherd: Guide Users Through Interactive App Tours

Shepherd is a JavaScript library for building customizable onboarding tours, trainings, and announcements inside websites and apps. Use it to explain workflows in context, with framework wrappers available for several popular frontend stacks.

JavaScriptOther licenseLibraryWeb DevelopmentFrontend
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13.8k
Forks
658
Stars, last 18 days
+14

Our take

Health score

58/100

How it is scored
Activity
62
Community
84
Issues
40
Pull requests
45

+14 stars in the last 18 days

  • More contributors than 77% of the projects we track
  • Merges more pull requests than 77% of the projects we track
  • Slower to merge pull requests than 86% of the projects we track

Overview

Shepherd helps product and development teams guide users through an app or website with step-by-step tours. It addresses the need to explain interfaces and workflows in context, without sending users to separate instructions.

The library is designed for customization and supports plain JavaScript and several frontend frameworks. It is a good fit when a product needs guided onboarding or feature education embedded in its interface.

Key Features

  • Create custom tours, trainings, and announcements for an app or website.
  • Guide users through a sequence of steps within the product interface.
  • Customize the experience with minimal default styling.
  • Use the standalone JavaScript library or framework wrappers.
  • Framework integrations are available for React, Angular, Vue.js, and Ember.
  • View a live demo and consult the project documentation.

Use Cases

  • Product teams can orient new users to key workflows during their first visit.
  • SaaS teams can introduce newly released features with in-app walkthroughs.
  • Developers can help users complete setup steps in complex applications.
  • Maintainers of web applications can add guided training without building a tour system from scratch.

Getting Started

See the README for setup and usage details. Documentation is available at docs.shepherdjs.dev, and the project website has a live demo.

Considerations

  • The README describes a JavaScript library, not a hosted onboarding service. Teams integrate it into their own applications.
  • Framework wrappers are maintained as separate packages or repositories, so check the relevant integration's documentation for setup details.
  • The README states that the project is dual-licensed under AGPL-3.0 and a commercial license. It says commercial products and revenue-generating companies require a commercial license; review LICENSE.md for terms.
  • The repository metadata reports its license as NOASSERTION, so verify the applicable license terms before adopting it.
  • The README lists support for Edge, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, but gives browser-version guidance as last two versions only for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari; confirm compatibility for your target environments.

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