Monthly Challenge for September 2024: Preptember! Get open source ready.

This month, we have two tracks. Maintainers will review their open-source repositories with our repository checklist to ensure their projects are ready for Hacktoberfest contributions. Contributors will look at their favorite repos, evaluate them based on the guide, and write good issues to fulfill the criteria.

We have a Virtual Coffee Preptember repository for you to add yourself as a Preptember participant and to list repositories that pass our repository checklist to be recommended for Hacktoberfest!

Theme

Get ready for open source!

Challenge

Maintainers:

Evaluate your open-source project and complete the checklist before the end of September.
List your open-source project in our Virtual Coffee Preptember repository after it passes our repository checklist.

Contributors:

Add yourself as a Preptember participant in our Virtual Coffee Preptember repository.
Following the guide, evaluate an open-source project to VC-verify it as a good project to contribute to. If the repository doesn't meet our standards, create and submit good issues to suggest updates.
List the repository in our Virtual Coffee Preptember repository after it passes our repository checklist.

Maintainers

Preparing your open-source project for contributions is one of the best ways to create a community of contributors that lasts beyond Hacktoberfest. Your repository should have a clear path for communication, a good explanation of how to run the project, and well-written issues. Our guide will help you prepare your project to be added to the list of Virtual Coffee-endorsed projects for our Hacktoberfest Initiative.

Contributors

The first step in becoming a good contributor is navigating an open-source repository and understanding the time and effort maintainers put into ensuring their projects are welcoming to contributors. As we move into Hacktoberfest season, we can support maintainers in their efforts to onboard new contributors. To complete this monthly challenge, find an open-source repository you'd like to contribute to and evaluate it based on our repository checklist. If it doesn't meet our checklist requirements, add an issue or multiple issues, asking the maintainers to update the repository based on your feedback.

How to Participate

Please take a look at our Repository Checklist. This guide contains everything we look for in a good open-source project.

If you are new to open source, we have a Virtual Coffee Preptember repository for you to practice open source by adding yourself as Preptember participant.
If you are participating in this month's challenge as a contributor, consider the items in our repository checklist as you look at some possible open-source repositories to contribute to. If the repositories pass the checklist, add them to the repositories list in the Virtual Coffee Preptember repository.
If you are participating as an open-source maintainer, use our checklist as a guide to get your repository ready for contributions. Then add your project repository to the repository list in the Virtual Coffee Preptember repository.

Weekly check-ins

Are you making progress? Set your weekly goals every Monday during September, and let's check in on Fridays in Slack.

Example Goals for Week One

Maintainers — Review your README.md and CONTRIBUTING.md files.
Contributors — Look through your favorite repos to see if there's an issue you could create.

How do I share my progress?

Share your progress in the #monthly-challenge channel in Slack. While no other platform is imposed, sharing on social media for more reach can be a good idea, but only if you are comfortable doing so. You can share on Twitter using — or not — the hashtag #VCMonthlyChallenge, a personal blog, a post on DEV.to, you get the idea!

Sharing every time some work is added is a good idea. Small progress is still progress. There is no need to write a detailed blog post. A 140-character Tweet can be enough. For example, "Today, I updated my README to give instructions on how to run my project."

What if I need help?

You can ask questions in the #help-and-pairing channel in Slack, ask for ideas in the #open-source channel, or join the #co-working-room. Asking for help is part of the process!

And remember, we're always here to help. ❤️

Completing the challenge!

To complete this challenge, post to our Virtual Coffee Preptember repository. There are two ways to complete this challenge:

Add yourself as Preptember participant.
Add repositories to the repositories list.
- If the repository does meet the checklist requirements, post the repository in the Virtual Coffee Preptember repository.
- If the repository hasn't met the checklist requirements, post the repository and a link to the issue/issues you've added to prepare the repository for Hacktoberfest in the #monthly-challenge channel in Slack.