For every dev starting with the open-source journey is daunting. There are a lot of amazing projects out there one can contribute to. These are written in different languages, and follow different design patterns and principles. They have different shapes and sizes. You get the idea of what I want to say. Right?
I have contributed to Google's opensource project 'Blockly' and Microsoft's opensource project 'VS Code Editor' by following the below tips. Some useful resources are also listed for you at the end of the blog.

One and one is eleven 🤝

First of all, find a programming buddy. While working together, you'll be motivated and will enjoy the whole journey. I found a programming buddy on Twitter who was looking for making his first open-source PR. We share the same interest and are web developers by profession. We started by scheduling daily online meetings of one hour. During the meeting, we went through repositories for some well-known projects that we use on daily basis and are open-sourced. Some of thems are vscode, react, reactstrap, and materialUI. We hang out whenever we are available and share our experiences and learnings.

Baby steps are the key to progress 📈

Soon we realized the codebases are really huge and open-ended. So, we decided to explore the codebases while solving beginner-friendly bugs. We sorted out the beginner-friendly issues using the labels "good first issues" and "help wanted" from the issues tab and asked the maintainer if we can pick that issue by tagging them in that issue thread.

Now, wait for the maintainer's response and if it is affirmative then work on the issue.

Tip: These issues are mostly easy to solve but if you are stuck then ask the maintainer regarding that in the same issue thread. However, ensure that you do your homework before tagging the maintainer. You can also ask your queries on their community server. The link to the community server is mostly in the readme file.

Follow the rules 📑

Before working on the issues, go through the contribution guidelines of the projects. Most of the projects follow strict coding styles and patterns. You can read about them in their readme file as well. Once you know the rules, you're good to go and your PR will have a greater chance to get merged quickly.

The sooner the better 🌇

Beginner-friendly issues are hard to find as they get picked up as soon as they open. So, keep checking the project issues section for new issues.

Celebrate small wins 🎉

Publish a post covering your learning and merged PR details on the platform you publish your work(Twitter/LinkedIn) and tag the project and people that helped you during the process.

Be consistent and Repeat 🔁

Be consistent at what you're doing and repeat the same process again and again. Try to pick tougher issues gradually.

Here are some resources that I found useful.

• Issues filter can filter for all open-source GitHub projects based on programming language and labels:
• Good first issue is a decent website to filter issues as well but few listed issues are outdated or stale.
• Code Triage is a website where you can select listed projects and subscribe to them and you will get updates regarding new issues from the selected projects in your email box daily.

I hope you liked the blog. That's it for now. I'll see you soon with my next blog power-packed with personal experience and tried and tested information.

Best of luck 👍 with your open-source journey. Now, you're more than ready to get started.

Feel free to reach out to me! 😃

💡LinkedIn 🐦Twitter 💻 Github 💌 Email