 that it lost all its stars due to a small error. The devastation of losing 10+ years of attention and traction sounds devastating, and we can all only learn from their experience to ensure we don’t make the same mistake. But, I want to digest whether any of this matters.

Projects with 15K stars are in the top 1000 repositories on GitHub


GitHub Stars is not a good metric for engagement or the quality of the project, and I am not alone in that conclusion. However, you can't ignore that the industry has centralized around the GitHub Star.


Since the httpie's stardust, httpie has regained nearly half of the stars it had prior but gained the love and support of a community. Before this incident, I had not used httpie for anything and now find myself testing out the product with my APIs to see the quality of the product.


Losing all their stars became an opportunity to attract more attention to the project and expose that this open source project has a business. I am not insinuating that losing them was intentional, but I am stating that I had not used their service prior and was not aware of the product side of the business until this year. 54k stars on GitHub was validation that at least 54k individual GitHub users cared enough to validate that it was worth checking out. Per information grather from OSS Capital's COSS Community newsletters, projects with 15K stars are in the top 1000 repositories on GitHub.


Httpie has regained its position on the elite list of top open-source projects after being at the bottom only months prior. The value the project provides extends outside of the universe of stargazers. Thousands of projects and developers use their open-source project. They have an avid readership on their blog and an engaged customer base. I led developer relations at GitHub during this incident and was DM'd by quite a few users of httpie.


The accurate metric for growth should be on community, not stars. By focusing on a growing community, httpie could scale quickly and gain exposure to a few OSS trending algorithms. Though their outside contributions were small, they had an established user base. They were in a much better place than most who found themselves in a similar situation, looking for growth and awareness. My recommendation for them is to grow their contributor community.


During my tenure at GitHub, I got the question"How to gain traction in open source," and the response was always similar. Grow a community of users and contributors who would miss you if you were gone. This validation can be from users, contributors, and even stargazers. This is arguably harder to track than stars, but at the end of the day, it comes down to when you experience a stardust event. What community can you reach out to for graceful recovery?


If you are interested in growing your contributor community, consider joining our 

. You can get alerts on contribution and community growth, so you always know when to make an impact.

Earlier in 2022, httpie lost all its stars due to a small error. The maintainer was devastated by this loss, and even though stars are not a great metric for engagement and quality of the project, the industry has centralized as it being just that. But zooming out, the loss of the stars did not matter.

Measuring success in open source

Open source projects can be a great way to retain engineers, as they provide a platform for engineers to collaborate on and contribute to meaningful projects. This can help to keep engineers engaged and motivated, and can also provide opportunities for personal and professional growth.

One way that open source projects can help to retain engineers is by providing a sense of community and collaboration. Engineers who participate in open-source projects have the opportunity to work with a diverse group of people from around the world, which can be both stimulating and rewarding. This sense of community can help to foster a sense of belonging and engagement, which can in turn help to retain talented engineers.

Another way that open source projects can help to retain engineers is by providing opportunities for personal and professional growth. Participating in open-source projects allows engineers to develop new skills and expertise, which can help to keep them engaged and motivated. It can also provide opportunities for engineers to take on leadership roles and have a real impact on the direction of the project, which can be a highly rewarding experience.

Furthermore, open-source projects can help to retain engineers by providing a platform for them to showcase their skills and expertise to a wider audience. Engineers who contribute to open-source projects have the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities to a global community of fellow developers, which can be a great way to build their reputation and advance their careers.

Overall, open-source projects can provide a powerful platform for retaining engineers by fostering a sense of community, providing opportunities for personal and professional growth, and enabling engineers to showcase their skills and expertise. This can help to keep engineers engaged, motivated, and committed to their work, and can ultimately help organizations to retain top talent.

Retaining the best engineers

From my time at GitHub, I learned that the label“good first issue” was created in response to the popularity of the 

 project. Thanks to folks like Scott Hanselman and Kent C. Dodds there is a pathway into open-source contributions that is approachable. The good first issue adds a label to identify bugs and minor fixes for anyone looking for a safe space to try their hand at an approachable contribution.

This blog post came out of a series of tweets I created last year.

https://twitter.com/bdougieYO/status/1561746501738459137


Fast forward to today, and you can’t ask someone how to find good first issues and have them rattle off 

. As someone who lead developer advocacy at GitHub, I can say the majority of those folks have not used those tools, and I can say that with confidence because the majority have not been updated since before 2018.


Today there are 280 million repositories on GitHub. Of that number, only 230 thousand have more than five contributors. There is a lot of answer to why that is, but to state it simply, only 0.1% of the projects on GitHub provide an approachable space for new contributors.


Unfortunately, the notion that you can browse GitHub and search your way to a contribution is invalid, and we have been preaching that sentiment for years. I share this as an advocate for open-source, but good first issues do exist. Most of what is labeled need more context for anyone new contributor to approach. There is a lot to be desired when it comes to good first issues.
We have got this far, and I haven’t shared the punchline, but here goes:


> The best good first issues are the ones you open.

Good first issues exist for the sole purpose of leaving a breadcrumb for a new contributor. These are issues that a maintainer could complete in less than 10mins. They are not set up to take a lot of time, and if you follow my beliefs, there should be a clear path to the solution provided by the person who labeled the issue.


The clear path to the solution can be the actual code to be copied and pasted with a line number or a rough idea of its implementation. Some recent good first issues include fixing broken links and adjusting mobile responsiveness.
The other truth is that exploring projects you have never used, with the hopes of contributing, is worse than sharing quotes from a book you have never read. Before you try to do any project, please install it. Cloning a repo down from GitHub and running it locally can expose many opportunities for contributions.




We have been running a small exploration project to discover the hottest new repositories on GitHub, and most of those projects barely have a README. These projects need extra eyeballs, and we would love for folks to try them out and report back. All projects need to start somewhere; it takes a particular person to be willing to try a new project and provide context on their experience. Not every open-source project is created equal, just like the same person doesn't create every issue.


Let’s look at some completed good first issues in the OpenSauced org.

https://github.com/open-sauced/hot/issues/295


This issue was opened initially due to inconsistencies with the fonts in the project. The issue clearly states the problem and provides a solution. This was picked up by a brand new contributor.


Another issue was an opportunity for refactoring duplicated code into its own reusable React Component. Now, this required someone with knowledge of React, but each line was outlined where it a duplicated, and a previously merged pull-request was provided to show where similar work was completed and could be referenced. 

https://github.com/open-sauced/hot/issues/287


This is work I could have done in about 10 mins, but I chose instead to leave for a new issue for a new contributor. The second contribution was completed by a new contributor that continued contributing throughout the summer and was brought on later as a full-time engineer at OpenSauced. The good first issue was a stepping stone to learning the project and becoming a consistent contributor.


I will leave you with this thought. If you are genuinely interested in leveling up and contributing to open source through good first issues, start by opening up issues you found and getting mentorship from the existing contributors or maintainers. You and the project will be better off for it and at the very least, try running the thing locally.


If you are interested in finding projects or tracking your own, consider checking out OpenSauced. And of course, if you are looking for new contributors to your project do not hesitate to reach out on our 

Unfortunately, the notion that you can browse GitHub and search your way to a contribution is invalid, and we have been preaching that sentiment for years. I share this as an advocate for open-source, but good first issues do exist. Most of what is labeled need more context for anyone new contributor to approach. There is a lot to be desired when it comes to good first issues.

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