Getting Started with Hacktoberfest
#Hacktoberfest 2018
Thanks for participating in Hacktoberfest!
You may be feeling overwhelmed and wondering where to get started, so let’s start with the basics:
Sign Up!
Sign up for Hacktoberfest using your GitHub account here: https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/ None of your PRs will count towards your total until you are registered, so make sure that you do that first.
If you’re contributing to Microsoft repos, Microsoft is also offering a free t-shirt to all contributors, so make sure you also register with them.
Find repos and read the Contributing Guidelines
Finding a project can be difficult. Check out this guide to finding a project here, and what you should read into before you start contributing: https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/#finding-a-project-to-contribute-to.
Or, play this game by Twilio!: https://www.twilio.com/quest/mission/28
Where to start:
You’re welcome to find an issue in this repo, and submit a Pull Request if you’d like to practice your git workflow, or just interacting with open source in a more low risk way.
There are also many major companies participating in Hacktoberfest, that have issues marked for first time contributors. You can find some of these below:
Project | Language |
---|---|
Mozilla | Docs, Most Languages |
Gastby | Docs, React, Node |
Microsoft | Docs, C#, JavaScript, TypeScript |
Twilio | Docs, Python, JavaScript |
Refresh your git
One of the most challenging parts of contributing to open source is using git. Each project may have slightly different ways that they’d like a pull request submitted - for example, they may ask that you rebase your branch before merging, or base your branch against a specific existing branch. Make sure to read the project’s contributing guidelines before starting your work.
If you’d like a basic git refresher, go here: https://try.github.io/
Resources
- Check out this post by Stephanie Morillo, who provides some great tips and practical advice on how to make Hacktoberfest amazing for contributors and maintainers alike.
- Suz Hinton’s Twitch livestream on contributing to Microsoft’s open source repos.
Good luck!