Contributing to open source had been on my to-do list for years. I'd always told myself the codebase would be too complex, my code not good enough, or that I'd do it "when I have more time." Last month, I finally stopped making excuses and did it.

Finding the right issue

The biggest mistake most people make is starting too big. I spent the first few days browsing issues labeled good first issue across projects I actually use. Eventually I landed on a documentation fix in a popular Node.js library — a README.md example that was subtly broken.

The fix itself was about 10 lines. But the process of getting it merged taught me far more than those 10 lines suggest.

Setting up the dev environment

Every project has a CONTRIBUTING.md — actually read it. Mine required:

pnpm install
pnpm test
pnpm run build

The tests failed on my machine at first. A quick search showed it was a Node version mismatch. nvm use to the right version fixed it. Lesson: check .nvmrc before assuming the project is broken.

Submitting the PR

The PR template asked for a description, motivation, and a link to the relevant issue. I answered each carefully. One of the maintainers reviewed it within 48 hours and requested a small change — exactly the kind of feedback I needed.

"The maintainers aren't gatekeepers. They're collaborators who want your PR to succeed."

What I actually learned

• Reading real production code is the fastest way to level up
• Good commit messages matter — write them for the next person
• Contributing builds credibility that side projects alone can't
• The community is far more welcoming than I expected

If you've been putting off your first contribution, start with documentation. It's how I started, and it got me comfortable with the full contribution workflow before tackling anything more complex.