How to find your first open source project

GitHub explains a practical way to start contributing to open source by looking for repositories with the “good first issue” label, then following the project’s contributing guide to make a small first fix. It also mentions using GitHub Copilot to help find projects by language and label.

Overview

Use the “good first issue” label to find beginner-friendly work

• The video frames the “good first issue” label as an explicit signal from maintainers that an issue is suitable for first-time contributors.
• The suggested approach is to:
  • Find a project that matches your interests.
  • Look for issues tagged good first issue.

Pick a project and follow its contribution process

• After choosing a repository, the next step is to read the project’s contributing guide.
• The goal is to make a small first fix to get familiar with the workflow.

Use GitHub Copilot to help discover projects

• The description notes that you can use GitHub Copilot to find projects in your preferred programming language that match the good first issue label.

Links

• GitHub Blog: https://github.blog