Skip to main content.
This monthly challenge is complete. Congratulations! Please join us for the next challenge!

Monthly Challenge for September 2021: Preptember! Get open source ready.

This month, we have two tracks. Our member maintainers will be reviewing their open source repos with our checklist to make sure their projects are ready for Hacktoberfest contributions, and our member contributors will be looking at their favorite repos and writing good issues as needed.

Challenge Team Leads & Facilitators: Aurelie Verrot & Andrew Bush

Theme

Get open source ready!

Challenge

Maintainers: Evaluate your open source project and complete the checklist before the end of September.

Contributors: Following the guide, create and submit a good issue to one of your favorite open source repos.

Maintainers

Preparing your open source project for contributions is one of the best ways to create a community of contributors that lasts beyond Hacktoberfest. Your repository should have a clear path for communication, a good explanation of how to run the project, and clear issues. Our guide will help you prepare your project and be added to the list of Virtual Coffee endorsed projects for our Hacktoberfest Initiative.

Contributors

The first step in becoming a good contributor is being able to navigate an open source repository and understand the time and effort maintainers put in to making sure their projects are welcoming to contributors. Writing an issue ensures that you have an understanding of the communication process, you've done the work to make sure that the same issue doesn't exist, and you've clearly described the need for the issue and have provided any information or screenshots necessary to help others to understand how to navigate the issue. Remember, you don't have to have a solution. You just need to be able to explain the issue clearly.

How to Participate

Weekly check-ins

Are you making progress? Every Monday of the month, set your weekly goals and let's check-in on Fridays in Slack.

Example Goals for Week One

  1. Maintainers — Review your README and CONTRIBUTING.md files.
  2. Contributors — Look through your favorite repos to see if there's an issue you could create.

How do I share my progress?

Share your progress in the #monthly-challenge channel in Slack. While no other platform is imposed, sharing on social media for more reach can be a good idea, but only if you are comfortable doing so. You can share on Twitter using — or not — the hashtag#VCMonthlyChallenge, a personal blog, a post on DEV.to, you get the idea!

Sharing every time some work is added is a good idea. Small progress is still progress. There is no need to write a detailed blog post. A 140-characters Tweet can be enough. For example, "Today, I updated my README to give instructions on how to run my project."

What if I need help?

You can ask questions in the #help-and-pairing channel in Slack, ask for ideas in the #open-source channel, or join the#co-working-room. Asking for help is part of the process!

And remember, we're always here to help ❤️

Completing the Challenge!

Once you've completed the challenge, post a link to your issue in Slack or your open source repository in our discussion.

Resources