---
title: Finding ways to contribute to open source on GitHub
intro: 'You can find ways to contribute to open source projects on {% data variables.product.product_name %} that are relevant to you.'
redirect_from:
  - /articles/where-can-i-find-open-source-projects-to-work-on/
  - /articles/finding-interesting-projects-on-github/
  - /articles/about-official-github-mirrors/
  - /articles/about-github-mirrors/
  - /articles/finding-open-source-projects-on-github
  - /github/getting-started-with-github/finding-open-source-projects-on-github
versions:
  free-pro-team: '*'
topics:
  - Open Source
---

### Discovering relevant projects

If there's a particular topic that interests you, visit `github.com/topics/<topic>`. For example, if you are interested in machine learning, you can find relevant projects and good first issues by visiting https://github.com/topics/machine-learning. You can browse popular topics by visiting [Topics](https://github.com/topics). You can also search for repositories that match a topic you're interested in. For more information, see "[Searching for repositories](/articles/searching-for-repositories#search-by-topic)."

If you've been active on {% data variables.product.product_name %}, you can find personalized recommendations for projects and good first issues based on your past contributions, stars, and other activities in [Explore](https://github.com/explore). You can also sign up for the Explore newsletter to receive emails about opportunities to contribute to {% data variables.product.product_name %} based on your interests. To sign up, see [Explore email newsletter](https://github.com/explore/subscribe).

Keep up with recent activity from repositories you watch and people you follow in the "All activity" section of your personal dashboard. For more information, see "[About your personal dashboard](/articles/about-your-personal-dashboard)."

{% data reusables.support.ask-and-answer-forum %}

### Finding good first issues

If you already know what project you want to work on, you can find beginner-friendly issues in that repository by visiting `github.com/<owner>/<repository>/contribute`. For an example, you can find ways to make your first contribution to `electron/electron` at https://github.com/electron/electron/contribute.

### Opening an Issue

If you encounter a bug in an open source project, check if the bug has already been reported. If the bug has not been reported, you can open an issue to report the bug according to the project's contribution guidelines.

### Validating an issue or pull request

A lot of emphasis is put on contributing code, but did you know that you can significantly help the maintainers by validating the contributions of others?  Here are three ways to do that:
#### Reproducing a reported bug
You can contribute to an open source project by validating an issue or adding additional context to an existing issue. 
* **Validate that a PR fixes an issue as intended**. Merge a PR into the related version and test. Update the PR comments with your test outcome.
* **Updating issues**, or tasks with additional information that helped you test, or work through the solution.

### Documentation & Writing
Writing and updating documentation is a very valuable contribution. A few options might be:

* Search for any feature you use on [GitHub Docs](https://github.com/github/docs/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md), review and improve the documentation if you can, or make suggestions.
* Simplify any open source onboarding project documentation like 'how to get started', 'how to setup project locally' etc.
* Translate documentation to another language.


### Further reading

- "[Classifying your repository with topics](/articles/classifying-your-repository-with-topics)"
- "[About your organization dashboard](/articles/about-your-organization-dashboard)"