Community

A community for your clients and fans inside the CRM: a public page people can join from, a member area with feed, messages, challenges and live calls, an installable phone app, and the numbers to run it. It covers what Skool does and adds what a CRM is good at: every member is a contact, every action can start a workflow, and the people, the money and the content live in one place.

• Team side: menu Seiten → Community (/community in the app). One tab per job: Beiträge, Meldungen, Kanäle, Mitglieder, Termine, Rangliste, Beitritt, Zahlen, Wachstum, Aktivierung, Nachrichten, Einstellungen.
• Member side: the member area of the sub-account, /portal/<sub-account>/community (every group in the CRM links to it as im Mitgliederbereich). The same address works as the start page of the phone app.
• Public side: /c/<community-slug> is the page people see before they join; /communities lists the communities that opted in.

The UI is German; this page is English. All routes are listed in api.md; every write is in the audit log; all data is scoped to the sub-account and to the Kurse & Community area of the user’s permissions.

Contents

1. Quick start
2. Joining: public page, tiers, invites, coupons
3. Member experience
4. Gamification
5. Challenges
6. Live calls
7. Admin and growth
8. The member app (PWA)
9. Automations, MCP and the team app
10. Import and export
11. Setup for self-hosters
12. Skool compared
13. Moving from Skool
14. Privacy and safety notes

Quick start

1. Seiten → Community → Neue Gruppe. A group starts with the channels Allgemein, Vorstellungsrunde and Ankündigungen.
2. Einstellungen → Zugang: choose who gets in (see Access modes). For a Skool-style paid club pick Beitritt über die Community-Seite.
3. Beitritt: write the About text, add a cover, create tiers (free or paid) and, if you want, invites and discount codes. Copy the link of the public page (/c/<slug>) – that is your sales page.
4. Wachstum → Willkommen: switch on the welcome message and the onboarding checklist so new members know what to do first.
5. Post a first message and pin it, then Aktivierung for badges, perks and a first challenge.

Access modes

Mode	Who sees the group
Alle im Mitgliederbereich (all)	Everybody who can log in to the member area
Teilnehmer bestimmter Kurse (courses)	People with active access to one of the chosen courses
Kontakte mit bestimmten Tags (tags)	Contacts carrying one of the tags (set by a form, a purchase or a workflow)
Beitritt über die Community-Seite (join)	People who joined through /c/<slug>, an invite, a workflow or the import – with or without approval and payment

join is the Skool-style mode: it adds the public page, tiers, trials, approval, invites and discount codes. The other three keep working exactly as before.

Joining: public page, tiers, invites, coupons

• Public page /c/<slug>: cover image or video, description, price, admins, search-engine tags and a join button. A page for a paid community shows the tiers with their features and the trial length; a community with approval says so. It loads no scripts or fonts from third parties.
• Join form /c/<slug>/join: name, e-mail, up to three questions of your own, the tier and a discount code. A free community lets people in at once or after approval; a paid tier sends people to the checkout of the product behind it.
• Tiers: free, monthly, yearly or one-off (lifetime). A tier has a name, a description, a list of features, a product for the monthly price and optionally one for the yearly price (so prices, tax and checkout are the ones from stripe.md), free trial days (up to 90), the courses and tags it grants, a grace period for failed payments, and can be highlighted on the page. A membership moves through request → approval → payment → trial → active → past due → ended; it starts when product.purchased arrives and ends with product.subscription_ended, a failed payment that is not recovered in the grace period, a refund or a removal.
• Approval: requests wait in Beitritt → Anfragen (and on the phone, see below). Approve, or reject with a reason; the person gets an e-mail either way (rejections can be sent silently). Moderators can answer requests from the member area.
• Invites: a link /c/<slug>/i/<code> per campaign or person, with a label, an optional tier, trial days, use limit and expiry, and the option to skip approval; the list shows how many used it.
• Discount codes: percent or fixed amount, for the first payment, a number of months or forever, with use limit, expiry and an optional tier; applied through the buy hooks of the Stripe module.
• Use limits hold while somebody pays: an invite counts when the person is in, a code when the purchase is paid – minutes after they left for Stripe’s page. Meanwhile the use is held by that Checkout page: it expires after 31 minutes (a SEPA payment holds it until the bank answers), an abandoned one frees the use again. So an invite or code “for the first 10” goes out ten times even when many people join at once; the next one is told it is taken right now (at the join form or at Jetzt kaufen). A request the team approved is not stopped by the invite’s limit at the checkout.
• Directory: /communities lists communities that switch on Im öffentlichen Verzeichnis zeigen. Turn the page off for the whole server with PGHL_COMMUNITY_DISCOVERY=0.
• Welcome: every new member gets the welcome mail of the group, the welcome message and checklist of Wachstum, the tags of the tier and the courses it includes.

Member experience

• Feed: posts in Markdown with up to four images, comments one level deep, likes, @mentions, follow, “new” markers, pinned posts, search and filter chips (all, polls, videos, pinned). Posts can be edited by their author; the team and moderators can hide, pin, move and delete.
• Polls: a question with 2–6 options, single or multiple choice, with an optional end (up to 30 days).
• Video: a YouTube, Vimeo, Loom or MP4 link, or a file uploaded in parts (default limit 500 MB, PGHL_COMMUNITY_VIDEO_MB). Uploads can be switched off per group. Nothing from outside is embedded unchecked.
• GIFs: by link (https image URL); no third-party GIF service is called.
• Direct messages: member to member (only between people who share a group where messages are on) and member to team. Limits per hour and new conversations per day, block, report, unread counts, a bell and a push message. The team answers member messages in Nachrichten → Postfach. Messages between two members are never visible to the team – only a message somebody reports shows up in Nachrichten → Gemeldete Nachrichten, with the four messages before it.
• Directory: all members with search, level, “online now” dot and role; what a member shows is their choice.
• Member map: members who chose to show their city appear on a dotted world or Europe outline. It uses no map service, no tiles and no outside request; the position is the town, never more exact. Off by default (Einstellungen).
• Online now and activity: presence dot, “active today” and a profile heatmap of active days.
• Profile: name, picture, about, headline, city, links, badges, level, points, and what others may see. E-mail addresses are never shown to other members.
• Roles: Admin and Moderator among the members (hide, pin, settle reports, answer join requests from the member area).
• Notifications: bell, daily e-mail digest (optional, unsubscribe in the profile) and push on the phone, each with its own switch.

Gamification

• Points and levels: points for posts, comments, likes received, finished lessons, live calls and challenges (all adjustable under Aktivierung → Punkte & Rangliste); nine levels with your own names and thresholds. A level can unlock a course.
• Leaderboard: 7 days, 30 days or all time, plus an optional monthly reset with a hall of fame archive of past months.
• Badges: a name, a description, an emoji, a colour and a rule. Rules: by hand only, points, level, posts, comments, likes received, courses finished, live calls attended, challenges completed, days as a member, days in a row active. The Vorschau button shows who would earn a badge before you save. Badges can pay bonus points (up to 1,000), appear on profiles and trigger workflows.
• Perks: rewards that unlock at a level – a discount code, a file download (up to 8 MB), a link or a text. A Vorteile page shows unlocked and locked perks; unlocking sends one notification. Files are only handed out to members who reached the level.
• Channel rules: a channel can need a minimum level or one of the tiers. Members below it see the channel locked with the reason.
• Manual points: Aktivierung → Punkte & Rangliste adds or removes points with a reason (it shows on the member’s history).

Challenges

A challenge is a start and end date with a check-in per day – “30 days of writing”, “7 days of outreach”. Aktivierung → Challenges: title, emoji, description, dates (in the sub-account’s time zone), the goal (how many check-ins finish it, all days by default), an optional task for each day, whether a note is required, points for check-ins and for finishing, a badge for finishing and a reminder hour.

Members join from the challenge page, check in once per day (only for today – missed days cannot be filled in later), see their streak and the board of everybody’s check-ins. The reminder goes out once per day from the reminder hour, as a bell entry and a push message, only to people who have not checked in yet. Workflow triggers Challenge gestartet and Challenge geschafft fire at the first and at the goal-reaching check-in.

Live calls

Every event in Termine can become a Live-Call with one switch: a Jitsi Meet room is created, with a random room name no one can guess. Members get a reminder shortly before the start. The room page opens 15 minutes before the start and closes three hours after the end; members join with one tap. Attendance is booked when somebody enters (points per call are adjustable, the trigger Live-Call besucht fires once per person and call). Afterwards the team adds the recording – a video link (YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, MP4) or an uploaded file – which is published as a post in the channel of your choice.

By default the public server meet.jit.si is used. Set your own with PGHL_JITSI_URL=https://meet.example.com (or per group in Aktivierung → Live-Calls). Camera and microphone are allowed only on the live page.

Admin and growth

• Zahlen (analytics): members over time, new and left members, MRR and ARR (net), churn, trial-to-paid rate, daily active members, posts and comments per day, top contributors, engagement rate and the mix per tier – for 7 to 366 days (30 by default). An overview adds one line per group. Available as MCP tool and as JSON.
• Welcome automation: an automatic message from a name you choose, an automatic post ({{name}} placeholders), and an onboarding checklist that members see for N days (profile, introduce yourself, comment, like, join a challenge, read the Start here post, or your own steps). Steps tick themselves.
• Start here: choose one post as the entry point; it shows as a highlighted box above the feed with a label you choose.
• Segments and broadcasts: pick members by tier, minimum level, active in the last N days, inactive for N days or tag, see the count, then send a message now or at a time by e-mail, bell and push. The e-mail goes through the campaigns of the sub-account (so sender, unsubscribe and do-not-disturb are the usual ones). Segments are also available as filters in workflows and campaigns.
• Partner programme: connect a group to an affiliate programme; members get a Partner tab with their link, clicks and commission, and can sign up with one click.
• Moderation: reports, auto-hide after N reports, word filter (mask or block), post and comment limits per hour, bans with optional hiding of content – unchanged from the first version.

The member app (PWA)

The member area installs as an app on the home screen. It is branded per client: the name and the colour come from the sub-account, the icon is drawn from the agency branding (the first letter on the brand colour, or the uploaded logo). Nothing is built, signed or submitted to a store.

• Install: a banner offers it on Android and desktop Chrome/Edge after a few seconds; on iPhone it explains Teilen → Zum Home-Bildschirm. A closed banner stays away for two weeks.
• Offline: if the phone has no signal the app shows a friendly offline page. Pages themselves are never cached – a member who logs out sees nothing of the community afterwards.
• Push notifications: members switch them on in Profil → Benachrichtigungen aufs Gerät for each device. Pushes go out for direct messages, mentions, replies, announcements and events, challenges and – only for members who asked for it – every new post. Each kind has its own switch. Push needs HTTPS and a browser that supports Web Push (on iPhone the app must be on the home screen, iOS 16.4 or newer).
• Android app: the HyperLevel Android app is a WebView; open the member area with https://<your-host>/portal/<sub-account>/community as a link and it opens inside the app. Nothing changes in the Android code.

The manifest, icons and worker are served from /portal/<key>/manifest.webmanifest, /portal/<key>/icon/<size>.png and /portal/<key>/community-sw.js; the page script is /portal-pwa.js.

Automations, MCP and the team app

Workflow triggers

The three original triggers plus nine more. Every trigger has a Community-Gruppe filter; the ones with their own filter are noted. The event data below is what {{event.…}} can read; every event also carries the member as the workflow’s contact.

Trigger	Event data
community.post_created	groupId, postId, channelId, contactId, post {title, …}
community.member_joined	contactId, groupId, group {id, name}
community.level_reached	contactId, groupId, level, level_name, group (filter: minimum level)
community.member_left	groupId, group, tier {id, name}, reason (canceled, payment_failed, removed, refunded)
community.trial_started	groupId, group, tier, trial_ends_at (filter: tier)
community.trial_converted	groupId, group, tier (filter: tier)
community.join_requested	groupId, group, tier, answers {question: answer}
community.challenge_joined	groupId, group, challenge {id, title} (filter: challenge)
community.challenge_completed	groupId, group, challenge {id, title}, checkins (filter: challenge)
community.badge_earned	groupId, group, badge {id, name, emoji}, by (empty = automatic) (filter: badge)
community.dm_received	from {id, name, team}, toTeam, message {id, text}, threadId (filter: direction an das Team / an ein Mitglied)
community.event_attended	groupId, group, event {id, title} (filter: event)

Workflow steps

Step	What it does
In Community aufnehmen / Aus Community entfernen	The existing steps; for a join group they create or end a free membership with the tier you name (and the welcome automation)
Community-Abzeichen vergeben	A badge by name or ID, once per member, with its notification and bonus points
Community-Nachricht senden	A direct message from the team (or a named sender); a message sent by a workflow never starts the trigger Nachricht erhalten again, so loops cannot happen
Community-Punkte vergeben	Positive or negative points with a reason
Community-Beitrag schreiben (als Team)	A post in a channel, optionally notifying everybody; placeholders like {{contact.first_name}} work

MCP tools

For Claude, Codex and the HyperLevel agent (every tool respects the area permission of the key):

Tool	Use
ghl_community_members	Groups of a project, or the members of one group (search, banned only) with points, level, posts
ghl_community_post	Post as the team (Markdown; channel, pin, notify, poll, video link, GIF link). Classified as a sensitive write
ghl_community_stats	The numbers of one group or an overview of all (days, series)
ghl_community_grant	member, remove, tier, badge or points for one member. Classified as a sensitive write
ghl_list_community_posts, ghl_create_community_post	The original read and write tools

Team app (Android)

The Android app shows what needs attention without opening the web app: join requests, reported posts and messages, member messages, and a button to post as the team. The endpoints are under /api/mobile/community and relay onto the normal routes, so rights, validation, events and the audit log are identical. See api.md.

Import and export

Community → Importieren / Exportieren (see also Moving from Skool):

• Members (CSV): name (or first_name + last_name), email, joined (member since), tier, tags, points, phone. Column names are recognised in English and German; delimiter , ; or tab; BOM and quoted line breaks are fine; up to 5,000 rows and 6 MB. A dry run shows what would happen per row: new, already a contact, already a member, duplicate, invalid. You can fix the column mapping, the date order (day-first or month-first) and map your old tier names to tiers.
• Posts (Markdown): one file per post, optional front matter (title, date, author by e-mail or name, channel, pinned), a # Heading as title otherwise; up to 500 files, 120 KB each. Dates are kept if you want, authors are matched with members, everything else becomes a team post. Posts that exist already (same title and text) are skipped.
• Quiet by default: an import sends no mail, starts no workflow and pays no points, unless you switch each on (people marked do not disturb never get the mail). You must tick that you may contact and store these people (for example because they joined your community themselves).
• Export: members.csv (FirstName, LastName, Email, Joined, Tier, Level, Points, Status) and posts.json (posts with channel, author, date, likes and comments) per group, any time – your data is never locked in.

Setup for self-hosters

Nothing is needed to start: the community works on a fresh install. The optional settings:

Setting	Default	What it does
PGHL_BASE_URL	–	The public address; used for the links in mails, push messages, the manifest and invites. Must be https:// for push and install
PGHL_COMMUNITY_DISCOVERY=0	on	Turns the public directory /communities off
PGHL_COMMUNITY_VIDEO_MB	500	Largest video a member can upload
PGHL_JITSI_URL	https://meet.jit.si	The Jitsi Meet server for live calls
PGHL_PUSH_CONTACT	admin e-mail	The contact address in the push headers (a mailto: or https URL)

What needs real accounts or keys (everything else runs offline):

Feature	Needs
Paid tiers, trials, discount codes	A Stripe account connected in the sub-account – see stripe.md – and a product per paid tier
Mails (welcome, approval, digest, broadcasts, reminders)	An SMTP or other mail sender for the sub-account
Push on phones	HTTPS on the real domain. The VAPID key pair for members is created automatically on first use; the private half is stored encrypted
Live calls with your own branding or recording	Your own Jitsi server (optional; the public one works without any account)
The partner programme	An affiliate programme

Back up the data directory as usual – videos and perk files live in it. Restores keep memberships, points, badges and challenges.

Skool compared

Skool is a fine product for one thing: a simple paid community. This table is about what each does as of writing; check skool.com for its current plans and limits.

	Skool	This community
Hosting and data	Skool’s servers, one platform per group	Your server, your database; export any time
Price	Monthly platform fee per group plus a transaction fee on paid memberships	No platform fee; Stripe’s own fees only
Public About page, paid tiers, free trial, discount codes, invites, join questions, approval	Yes	Yes
Feed, comments, likes, pinned posts, polls, video, GIF, search	Yes	Yes
Courses (classroom)	Yes, inside the group	Yes – the CRM’s courses, with drip, certificates and quizzes; levels can unlock them
Points, levels, leaderboard	Yes	Yes, plus a monthly reset with an archive
Badges	Level names	Rule-based and manual badges with preview, bonus points and triggers
Level rewards	Level-locked courses	Courses, perks (codes, files, links, text) and level- or tier-locked channels
Challenges	No dedicated feature	Built in: daily check-ins, streaks, reminders, board, badge, workflows
Calendar and live calls	Calendar with meeting links	Calendar, Jitsi calls with attendance, recording post, points
Direct messages	Yes	Yes, with limits, blocks and reports; team inbox
Member directory and map	Yes	Yes – the map without any map service
Mobile app	Native app under Skool’s brand	Installable app under your client’s name, colour and icon, with push
E-mail to members	Limited e-mail blasts	Segments, scheduled broadcasts by e-mail, bell and push through your campaigns, unsubscribe included
Analytics	A metrics page	Members, MRR, churn, trial conversion, DAU, top contributors, per group and overall
Automation	Zapier connection	Native workflow triggers and steps, MCP tools for AI agents, REST API
CRM	None – members are not contacts	Every member is a contact with tags, pipeline, e-mail, invoices and courses
Affiliates	Platform-run	Your own affiliate programme with SEPA payouts
Public API	None (as of writing)	REST API and MCP
White label per client	No	Yes, per sub-account
Discovery	Skool’s own discovery pages	Opt-in /communities on your server (off with one setting) – you are not part of a marketplace

Where Skool is ahead: a large public discovery audience and a very polished native app. If you rely on being found inside Skool, that traffic does not come with you.

Moving from Skool

Skool has no public API, so nothing can be pulled automatically. The route that works:

1. Prepare the new group. Create it with access mode Beitritt über die Community-Seite, add the tiers (match the prices you charge today), channels (one per Skool category) and the badges, levels and perks you want. Do it before you invite anybody.
2. Export the members. In Skool, as the group owner, export the member list as CSV (the button is in the group’s admin area; its place changes now and then). It typically has name, e-mail address and join date, and the answers to your membership questions. The importer recognises the usual column names and lets you fix the mapping. Rows without an e-mail address cannot be imported – the dry run lists them; ask those people to join through an invite link.
3. Import them. Importieren / Exportieren → Mitglieder: choose the file, check the column mapping and the date order in the dry run, map Skool’s tier names to your tiers, tick the rights confirmation and import quietly first. Join dates are kept; points can come across if the CSV has them.
4. Bring the best posts. Copy the posts worth keeping (welcome, rules, evergreen guides) into Markdown files – one file per post, optional front matter – and import them as team posts, or write them again in the editor. Comments and likes do not move.
5. Paid members. Their subscriptions run in Skool’s payment setup and cannot be transferred. Create the matching tier and send the people an invite with a discount code (for example the first month free). Members cancel in Skool once they have moved. Free members can be given access straight from the import.
6. Announce. Pin a post in the old group with the link of the new one, let the import send its welcome mail (or send a broadcast to a segment afterwards), and keep the old group open for a few weeks.
7. Install. Tell members to open the link on their phone and add it to the home screen; push messages come once they switch them on.

Privacy and safety notes

• Members are contacts; they can export or delete their data like any contact (api.md). Community data is part of the privacy export of a contact – direct messages (both sides of each conversation), blocks and reports included. Erasing a member deletes its conversations (for the other side too), its blocks, and the bell entries of other members about it or its posts.
• Other members never see e-mail addresses, and the map and heatmap show only what a member chose to show.
• Messages between two members are private; the team sees only messages that were reported.
• Everything a member writes is escaped on output; uploads are limited to PNG, JPG, GIF and WebP pictures (up to 3 MB) and to the video formats listed above; the member area runs under a strict content security policy (the community adds only its own scripts, manifest and worker).
• Broadcast e-mails and the import’s welcome mail skip contacts marked do not disturb; the import is quiet unless you switch things on and always asks for the rights confirmation.
• Live calls use a random room name per event; whoever has the link and the member session can join, nobody else.