7 Learnings From Hacktoberfest I Wish I Knew Before Starting

New to Hacktoberfest ? Here’s a quick intro. As the name suggests, it is a month-long celebration of open-source contributions that happens in October. Its main purpose is to encourage everyone to contribute and learn by doing.

This year I participated for the first time and honestly I was a bit overwhelmed by the number of repositories and issues. In this blog, I’ll be sharing what I learned along the way while completing the Hacktoberfest challenge.

Image frHacktoberfest.com

1. Search for the “good first issues”

Good first issues are issues that are super beginner friendly. The maintainers usually tag such issues with the label goodfirstissue making it easier for newcomers to get started with contributions.

An example of a good first issue could be adding documentation or writing simple test cases.

2. Use the Github search to your advantage

When I was searching for my first issue to contribute to, I realised that it was a lot to process. There are thousands of repositories and finding the right one can be a bit overwhelming.

What really helped me was using these filters while searching on GitHub:

1. topic: hacktoberfest
2. language: (the language that you want to work in)
3. labels: goodfirstissue

Once I searched using these filters, I was able to narrow down the search space and find relevant issues more quickly.

3. Look out for recently updated repositories

Hacktoberfest is a global event so there is a lot of competition for picking issues. At first, finding suitable issues took a lot of time because many of the ones I found were already assigned to someone else. One trick that helped me here was sorting the repositories on Github by recently updated. By looking for open issues in these repositories, I increased my chances of being the first person to request for the issue.

4. Join the related communication channels

Maintainers usually share all updates on Slack or Discord channels, so joining these channels helps you stay in the loop and not miss any major updates.

5. Ask questions immediately

One thing I initially struggled was to ask questions about the issue that I picked up. Eventually I realised that the maintainers also want you to contribute and are happy to answer whatever questions you have and guide you to the right direction.

6. Keep track of your issues

Once I started getting assigned to issues, I created a sheet to track all my contributions. Here’s the format I used:

• Repository name
• Issue URL
• Start date
• Target date (a personal deadline)
• Status(Assigned, In Progress, In Review and Done)
• Notes

This was extremely helpful because not all issues are assigned immediately and the sheet made it easy to check everything in a single place.

7. Revisit the repositories you’ve already contributed to

Contributing to multiple issues in the same repository can be relatively easier. When the issues are related, you will have useful context. You can let the maintainer know that you are interested in working on more issues.

Conclusion

Hacktober fest is a great opportunity to learn and explore open source. After participating this year, I genuinely felt like I was able to contribute in my own way, and that really made me happy. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend joining in next year !