YOUR FIRST CONTRIBUTION

Fix the docs,
join the project.

Open source needs more than programmers.

In GitHub's 2017 Open Source Survey, 93% of respondents had run into incomplete or outdated documentation. The Open Source Guides say the parts of a project other than code are often the most neglected, and that is where a newcomer can help most.

NO CODE NEEDED just a fresh pair of eyes

See what helps

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Read the contributing guide
Ask in public
Start small
Every project began with a first helper

THE SHORT ANSWER

Small fixes
count.

Half the contributors in popular projects
only drop in now and then.

DOCUMENTATION

The gap everyone sees

In the 2017 Open Source Survey, 93% had met poor documentation, but 60% of contributors said they rarely or never contribute to it.

See the numbers

CASUAL CONTRIBUTORS

Drop-in help is normal

A study of 275 popular projects found casual contributors made up 48.98% of all contributors, though only 1.73% of commits.

What they fixed

COMMUNITY

Rules for getting along

Many projects publish a code of conduct. Contributor Covenant, started in 2014, says it is used by 9 of the 10 largest open source projects.

How to start

WHAT DROP-IN HELPERS DO

What small contributions
actually change.

Pick a type of contribution to see how often it appeared in a sample of casual contributions to popular projects. The bar shows how common it was.

Based on Pinto, Steinmacher and Gerosa, More Common Than You Think: An In-Depth Study of Casual Contributors (SANER 2016), a manual review of 384 casual contributions.

TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING

Everyone notices,
few fix it.

What the 2017 Open Source Survey found
from 5,500 randomly sampled respondents.

93%

Respondents who had seen incomplete or outdated documentation

The most common problem in the survey. Its authors suggest opening a pull request to improve docs when you hit an issue.

DOCUMENTATION · SURVEY

60%

Contributors who rarely or never contribute to documentation

The same survey found 67% say a licence is very important when deciding whether to contribute to a project.

WHO HELPS · SURVEY

Source: GitHub, Open Source Survey 2017 (random sample from over 3,800 open source repositories). Percentages are rounded.

A FIRST CONTRIBUTION

Four steps
to a first fix.

The Open Source Guides describe how newcomers can join a project without stepping on toes.

Read the project files
Look for the README, a CONTRIBUTING file and a CODE_OF_CONDUCT. The guides say their presence signals a project that welcomes contributors.
Check it is alive
Look at recent activity: are issues answered, are pull requests reviewed and merged, and do maintainers thank people?
Search, then ask
Check open and closed issues first. Give context, keep it short, and keep the conversation public unless it is a security problem.
Respond to feedback
You may be asked for changes. The guides call opening a pull request and walking away bad form, and suggest saying thanks either way.

A small group of volunteers seen from behind sharing a long table with laptops and notebooks in a light community room — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Close-up of a hand marking corrections in pencil on a printed page next to a laptop keyboard — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

BEYOND THE DOCS

Other ways
to pitch in.

The Open Source Guides list contributions for every kind of skill: organising workshops or meetups, improving a project's layout and navigation, writing tutorials and examples, translating documentation, linking duplicate issues and asking clarifying questions on new ones.

Some projects also ask you to confirm you have the right to submit your work. The Developer Certificate of Origin, a short statement you agree to by signing off a contribution, also reminds contributors that a record of the contribution, including personal information in the sign-off, is kept indefinitely.

Questions

Questions people ask

Do I need to know how to code to contribute?

No. The Open Source Guides call this a common misconception and say other parts of a project, such as documentation, are often the most neglected.

What is a good first contribution?

The guides suggest starting with something you notice as a user, such as a broken link, a typo or a gap in the documentation, rather than ignoring it.

Should I open an issue or a pull request?

The guides say issues are for reporting an error you cannot solve, discussing ideas or proposing features, and pull requests are for starting work on a solution.

Can I message a maintainer privately?

The guides advise keeping communication public so others can learn, and only reaching out privately for sensitive matters such as a security issue or a serious conduct violation.

What does a code of conduct do?

The Open Source Guides say it sets ground rules for behaviour and helps create a friendly, welcoming environment. Contributor Covenant offers one in over 40 translations.

Fix the docs,
join the project.