Programming guide

Make your first open-source contribution

Find a beginner-friendly project, pick a suitable issue, and submit a clean pull request that maintainers are happy to review and merge.

Estimated time: 1–3 hoursUpdated: 1 October 2026

Use this guide if you can use Git and GitHub at a basic level and want real-world experience or something to show employers. October is popular for first contributions because of community events, but this works any time of year.

Step by step

  1. Choose a project you actually use

    Start with a library, tool or documentation site you already rely on, because you understand what it should do. Check the project is active: recent commits, issues getting replies and pull requests being merged within weeks rather than years. Read the README, the CONTRIBUTING file and the code of conduct before touching anything.

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