Celebrating Five Years

Support open source and earn a limited edition T-shirt.
Start Hacking
Hacktoberfest is presented by

What you need to know

Who

Hacktoberfest is open to everyone in our global community!

How

Pull requests can be made in any GitHub-hosted repositories/projects.

When

You can sign up anytime between October 1 and October 31.

Rules

To get a shirt, you must make five pull requests (PRs) between October 1–31 in any timezone. PRs can be to any public repo on GitHub, not just the ones highlighted. The PR must contain commits you made yourself. PRs reported by maintainers as spam or that are automated will be marked as invalid and won't count towards the shirt. This year, the first 50,000 of you can earn a T-shirt (compared with 30,000 in 2017).

Participation details →

Values

Hacktoberfest guiding values:

More on values →

Hacktoberfest Projects

You can contribute to any project on GitHub. Here are a few looking for some help:

Browse more on GitHub

Getting Started with Hacktoberfest

Beginners

If you're new to open source (which everyone was once!), you can take a look at the Introduction to Open Source tutorial series.

To make your first contribution, it's required to familiarize yourself with How To Create a Pull Request.

The following resources share repositories that curate tasks for beginners:

Once you start feeling more comfortable, you can continue to find more open source projects that can use your help through the following programs:

Visit this guide to find out more about how you can contribute to open source.

Or learn by playing a game.

Maintainers

Apply the label "Hacktoberfest" to issues in your GitHub project that are ready for new contributors to work on.

Here are tips for creating a good Hacktoberfest issue in your project:

  • Add a CONTRIBUTING.md file with contribution guidelines to your repo.
  • Choose issues that have a well-defined scope and are self-contained.
  • Consider adopting a code of conduct to foster a greater sense of community.

A first time contribution is often more about learning the process than the code itself. Remember we were all new once!

If you receive "spammy" pull requests, please let us know by applying the "invalid" label.

Learn more about how you can attract more contributors by building a welcoming community.

Contributors

Find an issue labeled Hacktoberfest to find projects that are actively involved and welcoming PRs, but remember you aren't limited to those. Often the best project to contribute to is something you use or depend on every day.

Here are things to keep in mind when contributing:

  • A contribution can be anything — fixing bugs, creating new features, or updating documentation.
  • Look for a repo's CONTRIBUTING.md file for contribution guidelines and instructions.
  • Know when to Rebase and Update a Pull Request. This is essential when collaborating on projects with many contributors.

Still looking for an issue to work on? Take a look at the Beginners section.

Or learn about what it takes to maintain your own project.

Global Meetups

Celebrate open source — organize or attend a meetup near you.
See more meetups