Hacktoberfest 2023
Once again, Hacktoberfest is back! During this October event, everyone can celebrate and support open source by contributing changes.
This year’s edition is special because it is Hacktoberfest’s tenth anniversary. Once again, the Jenkins community will participate in the event, and we invite you to contribute to Jenkins projects. We also encourage maintainers to welcome and help newcomers in the project.
The event is a good opportunity to cross the "imposter syndrome" threshold and contribute back to Open Source. A lot of helpful folks will be available to guide less experienced contributors in their first steps. It is also a great opportunity to acquire and exercise new skills, both hard and soft, while improving your experience with CI/CD in general and Jenkins in particular. On top of this, it is a great way to "build the Jenkins dev muscle", should one want to be part of the Jenkins Google Summer of Code 2024 adventure.
September is the perfect time to prepare for Hacktoberfest. Get a jump start by finding projects to contribute to, adding the "Hacktoberfest" tag to your projects, or familiarizing yourself with Git.
Due to the increasing popularity of Hacktoberfest, and to ensure its sustainability for another decade, the organization is moving away from a free t-shirt reward to a digital reward.
Contributors
This is what contributors need to know to participate and complete Hacktoberfest:
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Register anytime between September 26 and October 31 on the Hacktoberfest site.
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Pull requests can be made in any jenkinsci or jenkins-infra GitHub project that is participating in Hacktoberfest (look for the "hacktoberfest" topic).
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Project maintainers must accept your pull requests for them to count toward your total.
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The new digital reward kit will include a customizable badge that evolves with each pull request accepted by maintainers, representing the participant’s journey in open source and Hacktoberfest. Additionally, participants will receive unique badges featuring a delightful surprise and gifts from sponsors. Participants will also be able to proudly share their badge on the Holopin Hacktoberfest Badge Board of Fame.
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In previous years, Hacktoberfest sponsors have given participants who completed 4 PRs the option to plant a tree through Tree Nation, instead of receiving a t-shirt. This year, a tree will be purchased for the first 50,000 participants that complete their first PR.
Jenkins specific details can be found on the Jenkins Hacktoberfest page.
Some good resources for beginners can be found here:
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Intro to Open Source
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DigitalOcean: Introduction to GitHub and Open Source projects
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GitHub: How to contribute to Open Source
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DigitalOcean: What is Open Source
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DigitalOcean: How to use Git
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Sharpen your skills
A good introduction to Jenkins contribution is the series of Modernizing Jenkins plugins recorded livestreams.
Maintainers
Jenkins and plugin maintainers also need to get ready for Hacktoberfest by preparing your project for contributions by following these best practices:
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Add the "hacktoberfest" topic to your repository to OPT-IN TO HACKTOBERFEST and indicate you’re looking for contributions.
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Apply the "hacktoberfest" label to issues you want contributors to help with in your GitHub project.
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Add a CONTRIBUTING.md file with contribution guidelines to your repository.
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Choose issues that have a well-defined scope and are self-contained.
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Be ready to review pull requests, accepting those that are valid by merging them, leaving an overall approving review, or by adding the "hacktoberfest-accepted" label.
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Reject any spammy requests you receive by labeling them as "spam" and any other invalid contributions by closing them or labeling them as "invalid".
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