Contributors Country Flags

First Open Source Contributions

This project aims to simplify and guide the way beginners make their first open source contribution. If you are looking to make your first open source contribution, follow the steps below.

Fork this repository

Fork this repository by clicking on the fork button on the top of this page. This will create a copy of this repository in your personal Github account.

Clone the repository

Now to clone the forked repository to your computer, you should go to your forked repository on Github, click on the Code button, then select the SSH tab and then click the copy to clipboard icon.

Open a terminal and run the following git command:

git clone "url you just copied"

where "url you just copied" (without the quotation marks) is the url to this repository (your fork of this project). See the previous steps to obtain the url.

For example:

git clone git@github.com:your-github-username/first-open-source-contributions.git

where your-github-username is replace by your real GitHub username. Here you're copying the contents of the first-open-source-contributions repository on GitHub to your computer.

Create a branch

Change to the repository directory on your computer (if you are not already there):

cd first-open-source-contributions

Now create a branch using the git switch command:

git switch -c your-new-branch-name

If you get any errors using git switch, click here:

If the error message "Git: switch is not a git command. See git –help" appears, it's likely because you're using an older version of git.

In this case, try to use git checkout instead:

git checkout -b your-new-branch-name

Make necessary changes and commit those changes

Now open Contributors.md file in a text editor, add your name to it. Don't add it at the beginning or end of the file. Put it anywhere in between. Now, save the file.

If you go to the project directory and execute the command git status, you'll see there are changes.

Add those changes to the branch you just created using the git add command:

git add Contributors.md

Now commit those changes using the git commit command:

git commit -m "Add your-name to Contributors list"

replacing your-name with your name.

Push changes to GitHub

Push your changes using the command git push:

git push -u origin your-branch-name

replacing your-branch-name with the name of the branch you created earlier.

If you get any errors while pushing, click here:

• Authentication Error

  remote: Support for password authentication was removed on August 13, 2021. Please use a personal access token instead.
  remote: Please see https://github.blog/2020-12-15-token-authentication-requirements-for-git-operations/ for more information.
  fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://github.com//first-contributions.git/'

  Go to GitHub's tutorial on generating and configuring an SSH key to your account.

  Also, you might want to run 'git remote -v' to check your remote address.

  If it looks anything like this:

  origin	https://github.com/your-username/your_repo.git (fetch)
  origin	https://github.com/your-username/your_repo.git (push)

  change it using this command:

  git remote set-url origin git@github.com:your-username/your_repo.git

  Otherwise you'll still get prompted for username and password and get authentication error.

Submit your changes for review

If you go to your repository on GitHub, you'll see a Compare & pull request button. Click on that button.

Now submit the pull request.

Your changes will be merged into the main branch of this project. You will get a notification email once the changes have been merged.

Where to go from here?

Congrats! You just completed the standard fork -> clone -> edit -> pull request workflow that you'll often encounter as an open source contributor!

If you'd like more practice, checkout open source code contributions.

Now let's get you started with contributing to other open source projects. We've compiled a list of Bitcoin open source projects with easy issues you can get started on. Check out curated bitcoin open source projects or for good first issues see Good first issues.

Additional material

How to Contribute to Open Source