Beginner’s guide to Hacktoberfest 2023

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Hacktoberfest is an annual event hosted by DigitalOcean and other companies  that aims to encourage developers to contribute to open-source projects and give back to the community.

This time it’s 10th year in a row in partnership with GitHub and other companies, that it bring developers with the same mindset together from all over the world.

Before going deep in about Hacktoberfest, Let understand

What is Open Source?

Open-source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution.

When some source code is made Open source, it includes permission to use, modify, contribute to the existing source code. The use of the term originated with the software but has expanded beyond the software sector to collaboration and contribution.

Open-source projects that are hosted in public repositories benefit from contributions made by the broader developer community and are typically managed through Git.

Now you have understand what is Open Source, Let

What is Hacktoberfest?

Hacktoberfest is a month-long challenge. It happens every year in the month of October.

Hacktoberfest is open to everyone and it marks the celebration of Open Source. It’s the biggest Open Source event that encourages newbies to participate in Open Source and create their 1st meaningful PR. Hacktoberfest encourages participation in giving back to the open-source community by completing pull requests, participating in events, and donating to open source projects. Also, all backgrounds and skills levels are encouraged to complete the challenge.

How does it work?

• Maintainers determine if their open-source projects participate.
• Quality pull requests submitted on GitHub and GitLab are rewarded.
• Engaged maintenance of Hacktoberfest tagged repositories are rewarded.

How can you Join?

Step – 1:

Create a GitHub account, if you don’t already have one. Need help? Here are some resources to help you set up your GitHub account:

https://www.wikihow.com/Create-an-Account-on-GitHub

Step – 2:

Register for Hacktoberfest: Navigate to the Hacktoberfest registration page and follow the instructions. But, read the rules carefully before you do and then sign In using your GitHub credentials.

After the Registration you have profile like this.

Step – 3:

Find good projects worth contributing on the GitHub page. You can type label:hactoberfest is:issue is:open

• You can add a language label of your choice to filter open issues. If you are a beginner and can’t find good issues then there’s tag label:good first issue which filters out issues for beginners who want to contribute.

Here’s something beginner-friendly for you:

• github.com/Anup-maurya/Hacktober_Birthday
• github.com/blueedgetechno/win11React

Step – 4:

Submit PRs: Try and submit at least 4 PRs and wait for it to be verified. Make sure to submit quality PRs.

When can you join

Registrations are now open but you can sign up anytime between October 1 and October 31 in any time zone. Just be sure to sign up on the official Hacktoberfest website for your pull requests to count.

Swag List 2022

The Original – DigitalOcean, Appwrite, and Docker

• Swag: Digital Stickers
• Requirements: 4 pull requests in any eligible repository
• How to sign up: Hacktoberfest Website
• Notes: For your PR to count it must be:
• Submitted in a public repo, AND
  • The PR is labelled as hacktoberfest-accepted by a maintainer, OR
• Submitted in a repo labelled hacktoberfest, AND
  • Merged, OR
  • Approved

To Learn more visit  Hackoberfest website for more.

Rules

• Pull requests can be submitted to any opted-in repository on GitHub or GitLab.
• The pull request must contain commits you made yourself.
• If a maintainer reports your pull request as ‘spam’ or ‘invalid’, it will not be counted toward your participation in Hacktoberfest.
• If a maintainer reports behaviour that’s not in line with the project’s code of conduct, you will be ineligible to participate.

What not to do!

In line with Hacktoberfest value “quantity is fun, quality is key”, here are examples of the PRs that we consider to be low-quality contributions (which are discouraged):

• PRs that are automated (e.g. scripted opening PRs to remove whitespace/optimize images)
• PRs that are disruptive (e.g. taking someone else’s branch/commits and making a PR)
• PRs that are regarded by a project maintainer as a hindrance vs. helping
• Something that’s clearly an attempt to simply +1 your PR count for October
• Last but not least, one PR to fix a typo is fine. 5 PRs to remove stray whitespace… it’s not.’

Happy 10th Anniversary Hacktoberfest!

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