Community
LocallyGrown markets share a lot in common — the same questions, the same seasonal rhythms, the same late-night cart troubleshooting. Here's a plain look at how operators connect today, and the ways we haven't (yet) built a formal space for it.
Sage: the in-app assistant
Sage is an interactive chat assistant embedded in the modern footer. It's trained on this documentation, and it can also look up your own market's data — so it's usually the fastest way to get an answer, whether you're asking how something works or what's happening in your account this week. Sage always speaks to whoever is asking: a manager, a grower, or a shopper each hear about the things they're allowed to see. A few notes:
- Who sees it. Managers, admins, and superusers always have Sage on most pages. As of the latest update, a market manager can also switch Sage on for their growers and their signed-in shoppers — two separate toggles, both off to start, so nothing appears for those folks until the manager turns it on. Sage stays hidden while you're impersonating a customer.
- What managers can ask. Two kinds of questions. How-to questions this docs site would answer ("How do I close ordering early this week?" "Which CSV has line-item detail?"), and questions about your own market's data — "Look up Carol Kraemer," "Why is Carol's balance $23.75?" "How's this week's cycle looking?" "What did we sell last week?" "Did the newsletter reach everyone?" Every lookup is automatically scoped to your market and every answer is read-only.
- What growers can ask. Where a manager has switched it on, growers get a Sage that knows the grower's week — "What do I need to bring this week?" "Which of my items are sold out?" "How did I do last month?" "Who ordered my salad mix last week?" — plus their own recent orders, balance, and market schedules. A grower only ever sees their own farm's data and their own buyers.
- What shoppers can ask. Where a manager has switched it on, signed-in shoppers can ask about how the platform works, this market's schedules and pickup details, what's for sale this week, and their own recent orders and balance — never anyone else's.
- What it's not. Sage can only look things up and read them back — it can't place orders, send email, or change any settings on anyone's behalf, and it can't reach into a market other than the one you're in. Every lookup is recorded.
Managers, here's how to open Sage to your community. On your market admin page, find the Sage Assistant section and flip on growers, shoppers, or both. The switches start off, take effect right away, and can be turned back off just as easily.
If Sage gets something wrong or out of date, the source of truth is this documentation — and nudging us about it via support helps us fix the underlying content.
How markets talk to each other today
There's no official LocallyGrown-hosted community, but operators are a resourceful bunch and the knowledge-sharing happens anyway — usually off-platform, often one phone call at a time:
- Direct outreach. Market managers email each other when they want to compare notes. If you'd like to be introduced to another operator, ask via support — sometimes an introduction is possible.
- Regional farmers-market associations. Many states and regions have their own farmers-market associations (the Farmers Market Coalition, state-level groups) that run their own forums and conferences. LocallyGrown is not affiliated with those, but they're the right rooms for broader market-management questions.
- Email other growers in your market. Growers can email other growers in the same market via the built-in Email Growers tool — useful for coordinating harvests or sharing pickup-day logistics. This is for intra-market communication, not cross-market discussion.
- Managers: email all your growers at once — that tool and the rest of the manager-side grower workflow live in the Grower Management guide.
Staying informed about LocallyGrown itself
- Documentation. This docs site is the canonical place where platform capabilities are described. If something isn't here, assume it doesn't exist on the platform.
- What's new. See the What's New page for recent changes.
- Roadmap. The roadmap page lists what's planned. It's a single-maintainer roadmap, so timelines are approximate.
Helping each other inside a market
Most of the community a LocallyGrown market cultivates isn't with other markets — it's with the growers and shoppers who show up every week. The built-in tools do more of that work than they're sometimes given credit for:
- The weblog/newsletter is where managers write to customers and growers. Grower spotlights, harvest notes, pickup-day updates — see the Market Weblog guide.
- Announcements in the admin UI let platform maintainers flag maintenance windows and changes to market admins and managers.
- Customer comments on orders and the ability to reach the market manager on any order page give shoppers a direct line.