8-step guide on how to contribute to open-source

3 min read · 2022-09-28

Find a project you have no idea about and never used before. You can use GitHub explorer for that: https://github.com/explore. No commits in five years? Not a problem. They might have been waiting for you this whole time.
Do you see open issues? They’re for the weak. You’re creative and gonna fix issues they didn’t even know they had. Better yet, if you create a problem and then fix the problem, that’s two PRs. Gotta be smart if you want this free t-shirt.
Time to start working on a PR. You have two options:

Fork the project and run it locally. There’s probably a README or CONTRIBUTING guide with instructions, but you can also ping maintainers in every communication channel possible. They use Discord? Great! Open it and write “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO RUN YOUR PROJECT”. Make sure to copy paste your message to every channel possible. If no one replies in three minutes, mention the maintainers on Twitter. Now, you probably think “what if they don’t have Twitter”. Use email, post in other issues on GitHub. Or create a new issue! If nothing helps, proceed to the option below:
Don’t fork the project and make changes directly from GitHub. Why should you care if your changes work or not? You’re not the maintainer, they’ll fix after you.

Make your changes. You don’t have ideas what to do? What about changing I’m to I am or replacing words with synonyms? Or removing todo comments from the code. If you remove a to do item, it’s done, right? You can also add some typos, because our brains work this way that we don’t raelly relasie taht a wrod has a typo.
Create a PR. Here’s an official guide on how to do it. That’s a lot of reading so you can ping maintainers again and ask for help.
Now that your PR is there, time to make some noise. Go to Discord, Slack, or whatever they use, and post a link to your PR in every channel. You don’t have to add any context, your time is precious, they will guess what you need. If you don’t get a review in two hours, ping everyone again. Make sure to use @everyone or @here for better chances of success. Then wait.
I’m kidding, there’s no time to wait. Use the power of social network. Twitter, email, GitHub, Discord, Slack, LinkedIN, Facebook, Instagram. Can you already smell this fresh new t-shirt?
Now, we have a few options:

If more than five hours passed and your PR still hasn’t been reviewed and merged, you have every right to feel offended. Go to GitHub, open your PR, write a comment that THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE and close it. Go to step number one and start again.
In case your PR was reviewed but wasn’t accepted, you can write the same message, close the project and never think about it again. Then you go to step number one to give my guide one more chance. (Actually you need to do it more than once to get a T-Shirt).
If someone was smart enough to appreciate your work, you can go to point number one and start the process again. Three more times to go! Or just one if you used create problem/solve problem idea suggested in the second step.