Hacktoberfest 2017: The Countdown Begins!

Contributors of the world, we’re excited to announce that DigitalOcean’s fourth annual Hacktoberfest officially kicks off on Sunday, October 1. If you’ve been meaning to give back to your favorite open source projects—or if you want to make your first-ever contributions—set aside time this October to start hacking. You can earn a limited-edition Hacktoberfest T-shirt and stickers!

This year, we have resources available on local Hacktoberfest Meetups (and how to start one), finding issues to work on, learning how to contribute to open source, and resources for project maintainers who want to attract participants to their projects. You can find all of these resources and register to participate on the official Hacktoberfest website.

Just completed my FIRST EVER #hacktoberfest, meaning I made 4 pull requests on GitHub!! 🔥💪\ud83d\udcaa🔥 pic.twitter.com/WroFqbQJsg
— Vicky Steeves (@VickySteeves) October 21, 2016

The Details

If you’re wondering what Hacktoberfest is, it’s a month-long celebration of all things open source. Here’s what you need to know:

• Hacktoberfest is open to everyone in our global community. Whether you’re a seasoned contributor or looking for projects to contribute to for the first time, you’re welcome to participate.
• Pull requests can be made in any GitHub-hosted repositories. As long as the project is public and GitHub-hosted, your PRs will count towards your participation.
• You can sign up anytime between October 1 and October 31. Just be sure to sign up on the official Hacktoberfest website for your PRs to count.
• Check your progress. Once you sign up on October 1, start checking how many PRs you’ve made via the checker on the Hacktoberfest site (make sure you’re signed in first).

Over the course of the month, you can find new projects to work on from the Hacktoberfest site. Every time you visit the site, you’ll see issues labeled “Hacktoberfest”. Additionally, we’ll send registered participants digests with resources and projects that you can look at if you need ideas.

The Fine Print

To get a free T-shirt, you must register and make four pull requests between October 1-31. You can open a PR in any public, GitHub-hosted repo—not just on issues that have been labeled “Hacktoberfest”.

(Please note: Review a project’s Code of Conduct before submitting a PR. If a maintainer reports your PR as spam, or if you violate the project’s Code of Conduct, you will be ineligible to participate in Hacktoberfest.)

This is awesome, nice number of PR tagged as #Hacktoberfest to review and merge https://t.co/yuEWSOwqNY thank you all ;) #DrupalConsolepic.twitter.com/0OToATCOzI
— Jesus Manuel Olivas (@jmolivas) October 14, 2016

Mark Your Calendars

With just four days away until Hacktoberfest 2017 gets underway, take a look at what Hacktoberfest 2016 and Hacktoberfest 2015 looked like.

Have you participated in Hacktoberfest before? If so, share some of your stories or tips for newcomers in the comments below. If you have favorite projects, or if you’re a project maintainer, tell us what projects participants should visit in the comments. And be sure to see what others are saying in the #Hacktoberfest hashtag on your favorite social media platforms!

See you all on October 1!

Update March 2018

The last shipment of Hacktoberfest 2017 T-shirts has gone out. We experienced some issues with shipping this year, and we’re sorry if you were waiting for a shirt and haven’t received one. However, we’re making changes to improve the shipping process in 2018. Thank you for your understanding.