Contributing to Open Source Project as a Beginner
As the Hacktober Fest has just begun organizations and individuals are inviting contributors to contribute to their projects for roles. If you want to contribute an Open-Source project you create a role either as:
- Designer
- Developer
- Technical writer
- Translator
- User
- Product Manager
- Donor
- Q/A Tester
- Researcher
To contribute look for the GitHub repository of projects that are calling for contributors. For example vimcolorschemes
- Visit their repository and check the issues page:- for them they have 19 issues. Target the Hacktober fest issues
If you're a newbie to open-source projects click on good first issues since they selected specifically those that are good for beginners;
If you find an issue you feel comfortable with and can contribute to click on the issue and write a comment on it.
- This will show the maintainer that you're interested in it. He/she might give you an okay or invite you to join their discord channel or guide you on how to set up a project.
The open-source community is so supportive do not fear trying out making your contributions or asking for help.
once you've chosen to contribute to a given issue:
- fork the GitHub repository
- you'll have an option to:
git clone 'Link to the forked repo that has your username'
use the GitHub CLI
download as a zip file
I prefer the git clone since I haven't tried the GitHub CLI yet. Then you run the following commands:
- git checkout -b branch name
- git remote add upstream link-to-the-main repo
- git pull upstream master
- git commit -m "commit message"
- git push -u origin HEAD
then you can create a pull request(PR). The maintainer will either merge the PR or close it if it has conflicts that have to be resolved.
If you have or know of a beginner-friendly open-source project that one can contribute to you can share the link in the comments below.
Here's is few I have come across:
- https://github.com/emmalearnscode/guide-to-HF/issues -https://github.com/oscafrica/oscafrica.org/issues
- search hacktoberfest issues look through it
