How to make your first Open Source Contribution

If you are here then it means you want to be part of the great Open Source Community, but maybe you can't figure out where to start? No worries, you are in the right place.

I would like to mention that this article would benefit you the most if you know the basics of git.

So let's begin!

I have divided the whole process of making your first contribution into 6 steps.

1. Finding the right project

Finding a project to contribute to is an important step. You should choose a project which excites and interests you and whose tech stack is familiar to you. You don't need to know the whole tech stack or have an understanding of the whole project to start contributing.

Let's say you are familiar with Python. Then you can just go to GSoC's site and search python and it would display projects that use python, along with their mailing lists or slack channel links. You can join them and ask relevant doubts related to contributing to that particular project.

2. Using the Project

Again, this is an important step that leads you to your end goal of making your first open-source contribution. By using the project you get a brief idea about it and you also get to know how you can help to make it better.

To use the project, fork the repo by clicking on the fork button and set the project up in your machine by carefully following the steps mentioned in README.md of the project.

3. Searching for "good first issues"

After getting somewhat familiar with the project you can just go to the issues section and search for issue labelled as "good first issue" or "beginner-friendly issue" and if it is not assigned to another person then you can ask the maintainer to assign the issue to you and you can start working on it.

4. Creating a Pull Request

After you have made the required changes to fix the issue you can create a pull request. To create a pull request, you can find the steps required in the README.md or in CONTRIBUTING.md of the project you are contributing to because the steps might vary from project to project.

Here is an example of how you can successfully create a pull request for a particular project.

5. Waiting for Pull Request to get reviewed

After creating the pull request you just need to wait for the maintainer to review it and if no changes are required then the pull request will be merged.

6. Celebrate

After the pull request has been merged, you can celebrate 🥳 because you just made your first contribution to the Open Source Community.

Bonus : Here's a list of Open Source programs you can take part in.

Do give this repository a ⭐ if it helped you or you liked it.