Understand Open Source
Every open source contribution runs on the same handful of ideas. Learn them once and they apply everywhere.
What you'll learn
Open source means the code is public and anyone can propose a change to it. A repository ("repo") is the project's home: all its code and history live there. An issue is a tracked piece of work: a bug, a feature request, a question. A pull request (PR) is a proposed change, submitted for review. A maintainer owns the project and decides what gets merged. A contributor is anyone who submits a change, and by the end of this, that's you.
Do this
- Read the practice repository's README end to end.
- Open its Issues tab and read three or four issues, comments included.
- Find one closed, merged pull request and skim what actually changed.
Try it
Pick one open issue and describe, in a sentence, what it's asking someone to do.
Check your work
You can explain the difference between an issue and a pull request, and say who decides whether a pull request gets merged.