Welcome! Let’s do some open source! Contributing to open source for the first time can be scary and a little overwhelming. Perhaps you’re a Code Newbie or maybe you’ve been coding for a while but haven’t found a project you felt comfortable contributing to.
You can do it! Here’s how. If you have never contributed to an open source project before and you’re just getting started, consider exploring these resources.
First contributions is a hands-on tutorial that walks you through contributions workflow on GitHub. When you complete the tutorial, you have made a contribution to the same project. https://up-for-grabs.net is a site that aggregates (rolls up and makes easy to explore) projects that actively want help. They label those projects with things like “up-for-grabs”, “jump-in” or “help wanted.” goodfirstissues.com is a site that aggregates the latest issues with the label “Good First Issue”, which is a GitHub feature for finding easy issues to tackle (see here). goodfirstissues.com empowers first-time contributors to find and select issues that they want to solve. goodfirstissue.dev curates easy pickings from popular open-source projects, and helps you make your first contribution to open-source. CodeTriage helps you subscribe to your favorite open-source projects and get a new open issue from them in your inbox every day. Read blog posts and guides on how to contribute to an open source project, then pick one! If you’re just getting started with tech and are planning to become a social developer, we’ve made a documentary training movie for you! Get Involved in Tech walks you through setting up your GitHub account, exploring StackOverflow, setting up a blog and starting to tweet! Wondering what someone else’s first contribution was? You can easily find out any GitHub usernames “First Pull Request” here! (I think you’ll find that most people’s first PRs were relatively small like Kent’s). We think that open source projects should value civility, kindness, and patience with new developers. We encourage you to explore projects that have a published Code of Conduct.
Your contributions help make technology better for everyone, developers and non-developers alike.
Amazing developers use GitHub. Contribute code to projects that change how software is built.
Whatever your skill level, working on open source software is a great way to learn new things.
What Motivates a Developer to Contribute to Open-Source Software?