In this blog, I will talk about how to find very easy and beginner-friendly issues in open-source projects and make your first contribution 🎉

Introduction to Open Source

Open source pertains to something that is accessible to the public, enabling people to modify and share it due to its publicly available design. Engaging in open-source projects offers an opportunity not only to contribute to the advancement of free technology but also to explore various languages and frameworks within a supportive and inclusive community. 😎

Best ways to find issues

If you are new to open source and don't know and where to find easy and good issues then buckle up I will provide some easy way to get started.

1. First Contributions :

   If you haven't done any contributions yet and want to know the steps and feel of doing the first contribution then here is a repo for you. https://github.com/firstcontributions/first-contributions .

   Note : This project is only to simplify and guide the way beginners make their first contribution.

2. Search issues in a particular opensource project or repo :

   Almost every opensource project provides different labels on their issues. Using these labels you can find some good issues to get started. Even most of the time there is a link to filter only good first issues so that the new contributors get involved quickly.

   

   You can even filter the issues using the label tab. Apart from labels, there are many more options to filter issues.

   

3. Search issues on GitHub :

   One of the most common ways of finding projects to contribute to is by searching through issues and related PRs. Here are some tricks you can use to easily find reliable answers:

   1. is:issue is:open label:first-timers-only - This lists all open issues that welcome first-timer contributions.

   2. is:issue is:open label:"good first issue" - This will list all open issues with the label good first issue, it is a good place to get started.

   3. is:issue is:open label:beginner - This specific query will display a list of projects that have open issues and are labelled as suitable for beginners.

   4. is:issue is:open label:easy - This query will list all open issues that are labeled easy.

   5. is:issue is:open label:good-first-bug - This query lists projects with open issues labelled good-first-bug, to attract contributors to work on them.

   6. is:issue is:open label:"good first issue" - This will list all open issues with the label good first issue, meaning it is a good for place for beginners to get started.

   7. is:issue is:open label:starter - This lists all open issues from across GitHub that are labeled starter.

   8. is:issue is:open label:up-for-grabs - This lists open issues that are ready to be worked on if you have the basic or necessary skills.

   9. no:label type:issue is:open - This query helps to ists all open issues that are not labeled.

   10. is:issue is:open no:assignee - This shows all open issues that have not yet been assigned to a person.

       

4. Good First Issues Finder Website

   Good First Issue website https://goodfirstissues.com/ is a very good place to find good-first-issue. You can even filter the issue according to different programming languages, labels and repositories. There is another website similar to this https://goodfirstissue.dev/

   

5. Awesome for beginner websites:

   This website provides an extensive collection of projects suitable for beginners. It includes a wide range of open-source projects from various domains, offering opportunities for individuals to contribute and gain experience in the open-source community.

Best way to get involved in open source :

• Follow or star the projects that you want to contribute.

• Join the mailing list of the community or project.

• Join Slack or discord or any community platform suggested for that project

• Ask your queries in the channel

• Explore the project README.md files or any contribution guides or their documentations

• There is no small or big contribution, each contribution is equally important

Never get overwhelmed by large codebases. You can take one small step at a time. Start with exploring docs and easy, good-first-issue labelled issues. Try to explore others' PR (Pull Request) as well, even if you don't understand at first, no issue at all. Keep exploring and learning !! 😊

Resources to explore for open source :

1. https://github.com/freeCodeCamp/how-to-contribute-to-open-source#contributing-to-open-source-in-general

2. https://github.com/WeMakeDevs/roadmaps/tree/main/Open-Source

3. Understanding Open Source by Kunal Kushwaha

4. Understanding Large Codebases by Kunal Kushwaha

That's all for today. 🙏 . I hope this blog is helpful to you. If you want me to write a blog on a particular topic then you can share the topic with me on any socials. You can follow me on

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