How to make your first contribution to an open source project

Getting involved in open source doesn't have to be scary! Understand how to find a great project and make your first contribution in this guide. I recently (and accidentally) became a maintainer of a new open source project, npmx.dev . The project’s vision is to provide a new way to browse the npm package registry, with some exciting bonus features. I’ve always been on the fringes of open source; I’ve contributed to a few projects here and there, such as the Astro docs , Google Lighthouse , and some others, and most of my code on GitHub is open source for the wider community. But, contributing to open source projects can be scary: big codebases, unfamiliar tech, lots of new people, and a sea of open issues can make it hard to know where to start. However, open source isn’t really all about code , it’s about community . Since my involvement in npmx, I’ve experienced first-hand what a welcoming and inclusive approach to open source can do to empower anyone to make a variety of contributi