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Becoming a Maintainer with OpenSauced

Welcome to the Becoming a Maintainer Course with OpenSauced! This course is designed to provide you with an introduction to how to become an open source maintainer and guide you through the process of creating your open source project, working with contributors, and more.

Course Overview​

The course is divided into chapters, with each covering a different aspect of being an open source maintainer:

Intro: Understanding the Role of an Open Source Maintainer​

This chapter introduces the role of maintainers in open source, the benefits and the responsibilities of becoming a maintainer, and the challenges they face.

How to Setup Your Open Source Project​

This chapter walks you through the crucial elements necessary for every project to succeed during its initial setup.

How to Handle Open Issues and Pull Requests​

In this chapter, you'll learn how to manage open issues and pull requests in your project, from triaging issues to reviewing pull requests.

How to Communicate and Collaborate Effectively​

This chapter will discuss onboarding new contributors, utilizing different communication channels for your open source project's community, and maintaining healthy communication.

How to Maintain Code Quality and Documentation​

This chapter covers ways of maintaining code quality and documentation in your open source project.

Building and Nurturing a Welcoming and Supportive Community​

In this chapter, you will learn how to build and nurture a welcoming and supportive community in open source, particularly around your project.

Maintainer Power Ups​

This chapter introduces tools on GitHub that you can utilize to help you save some time, make your work lighter, and boost your productivity as a maintainer.

Building Your Open Source Dream Team​

In this chapter, you'll learn how to create and assemble your team by examining effective collaboration and offering guidance on identifying, onboarding, and empowering your open source squad.

The Power of Metrics and Analytics​

This chapter will help you understand your project's metrics and guide you through understanding, leveraging, and making decisions based on these metrics to create a thriving open source project.

Let's Get Practical: Starting Your Project​

This chapter contains tutorials based on the previous chapters to help you prepare and launch your first open source project as a maintainer.

Additional Information​

As this is the beginning of your open source maintainer journey, we've also provided additional information in these chapters:

  • Glossary: A glossary of common terms and definitions used by open source maintainers.
  • Additional Resources: A list of resources for further learning about open source maintainers.

Getting Started​

If you are taking this course on our GitHub repository, navigate to the intro.md file to start the course. Alternatively, visit the Becoming a Maintainer with OpenSauced on the website and start reading!

tip

Each chapter builds on the previous one, so we recommend reading them in order.

As you work through the course, we encourage you to experiment with the tools and concepts covered in the chapters.

Building Your Open Source Resume​

One of the unique features of this course is that it guides you to build your open source resume using OpenSauced. OpenSauced is a platform that helps you track and showcase your open source contributions, making it easier to get noticed by potential employers and collaborators.

To learn more about using OpenSauced to build your open source project, check out the Maintainers Guide to OpenSauced.

We hope you find this course informative and useful! If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to open an issue or reach out to us in the Community.

Happy learning and contributing!