A beginner-friendly project to make your FIRST open source contribution!
Practice making your first pull request to a public repository before doing the real thing!
No star, no merge. That's the deal. It keeps this community fair and helps the project reach more first-timers.
Reading this from a feed, mobile app or mirror? Open the repo page and tap the ★ there.
Star it, fork it, then follow the steps below. That's it. 🤟
This is a beginner-friendly project to help you get started with your Hacktoberfest journey. If you don't know where to start, watch the videos linked below, read the contribution rules, and add your very own profile card to our contributors wall. Happy Learning <3 💙 !!
This repository is open to all members of the GitHub community. Any member may contribute to this project without being a collaborator.
💡 What's different here? Other repos make you edit a
contributorsList.jsfile — and it always breaks (one JSON typo and the whole file is on fire, plus endless merge conflicts 😅). This repo uses plain HTML profile cards instead. Nothing to install, nothing to compile, and conflicts are way easier to fix.
- 🌟 You MUST star this repository before opening a pull request. Rule #1, no exceptions.
- ✅ Add your profile card to
index.html(see the task below). One card per PR. - ✅ Try to keep pull requests small to minimize merge conflicts.
- 🚫 Do NOT add any build steps e.g.
npm install(we want to keep this a simple static site). - 🚫 Do NOT remove or edit other contributors' cards or content.
- 🚫 Do NOT add JavaScript files, frameworks, or libraries — pure HTML/CSS only.
- 🎨 Styling/code can be pretty, ugly or stupid, big or small, as long as it works.
- 😄 You are allowed to make pull requests that break the rules. We just close them ;)
- 💜 Be kind and respectful. We were all beginners once.
Open index.html, find this line:
<!-- ✅ ADD YOUR PROFILE CARD DIRECTLY BELOW THIS LINE ✅ -->Copy the template below, paste it directly under that line, and change the values:
<!-- 👇 YOUR PROFILE CARD — copy this whole block and paste it below the add-line -->
<div class="card">
<img src="https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME.png" alt="YOUR NAME's avatar">
<h3>YOUR NAME</h3>
<a class="handle" href="https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME">@your-username</a>
<p class="quote">"One friendly line — your favorite language, or what open source means to you!"</p>
</div>
<!-- 👆 YOUR PROFILE CARD ENDS HERE -->| What you change | Example |
|---|---|
YOUR-USERNAME in the image link |
Your GitHub username — your avatar loads automatically 🖼️ |
alt text |
Ada Lovelace's avatar |
YOUR NAME in <h3> |
Ada Lovelace |
@your-username in the link |
@ada (link it to your GitHub profile) |
The .quote line |
"First PR ever — let's go!" |
💡 No HTML experience needed. You're only changing text between the tags — nothing else. The avatar is fetched straight from your GitHub profile, so no image uploading either!
Step 0 — Register first! Sign up at hacktoberfest.com with your GitHub account.
Step 1 — ⭐ Star this repo (click the ★ Star button in the top-right corner of this page, next to Fork — yes, it's Rule #1).
Step 2 — 🍴 Fork this repo (button on top). This creates your own copy under github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Hacktoberfest2026.
Step 3 — 📥 Clone it on your local machine:
git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/Hacktoberfest2026.git
Step 4 — Navigate to the project directory:
cd Hacktoberfest2026
Step 5 — Create a new branch:
git checkout -b add-my-profile-card
Step 6 — ✏️ Add your profile card to index.html (see Your Task above).
Step 7 — Stage and commit your changes:
git add index.html
git commit -m "Add profile card for YOUR-USERNAME"
Step 8 — Then push:
git push origin add-my-profile-card
Step 9 — 🔃 Create a new pull request from your forked repository:
go to your fork on GitHub → click Compare & pull request → title it Add profile card for YOUR-USERNAME → describe your change → Create pull request.
Once it's merged, you're officially a contributor! 🎉 Check yourself out on the live contributors page.
An easy way to avoid conflicts is to add an upstream for your git repo, as other PRs may be merged while you're working on your branch/fork.
git remote add upstream https://github.com/limitlessprojects/Hacktoberfest2026.git
You can verify that the new remote has been added by typing:
git remote -v
To pull any new changes from the parent repo, simply run:
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/main
This will give you any eventual conflicts and allow you to easily solve them in your repo. It's a good idea to use it frequently in between your own commits to make sure that your repo is up to date with its parent.
Or the zero-commands way: on your fork's GitHub page, click Sync fork → Update branch.
For more information on syncing forks, read this article from GitHub.
- 📅 Open 4 successful pull requests between October 1–31 (and register at hacktoberfest.com first!).
- 🎽 You'll be eligible for a Hacktoberfest T-shirt and stickers, straight to your doorstep.
- 🧾 PRs must be reviewed and not marked
invalidorspam— which is exactly why we keep the rules simple and the PRs small. - 🖼️ Bonus swag that never runs out: your face and name on the contributors wall, forever.
- Who all can contribute?
- Anyone with a GitHub account who is signed up for Hacktoberfest :)
- Do I need to know HTML/CSS?
- No! You're copying one block, pasting it, and changing a few words. That's the whole task.
- Why is there no
contributorsList.jslike other Hacktoberfest repos?- Because those files kept breaking — a single JSON typo could break the file for everyone, and every new PR risked a merge conflict. HTML cards are simpler, friendlier, and don't need any JavaScript.
- Are you getting paid for this?
- Sadly no. But we think we should. This is 100% unofficial and we do it for fun, fame and glory.
- Is this an official Hacktoberfest project?
- Nope. It's a community-run project made for beginners to practice. Not affiliated with DigitalOcean or GitHub.
- How many pull requests must I make to get the awesome Hacktoberfest T-shirt?
-
- My PR hasn't been reviewed yet. What do I do?
- Be patient — we review as fast as we can during October. If it's been a few days, politely ping us in the PR comments. And make sure you ⭐ starred the repo!
- Can I add more than one card / more than one PR?
- One card per person, please. Quality over quantity — spam PRs get marked
spamand can get your Hacktoberfest account flagged.
- One card per person, please. Quality over quantity — spam PRs get marked
Be excellent to each other. Read the full Code of Conduct before contributing.
- Structure & inspiration: the legendary fineanmol/Hacktoberfest2026 💙
- Hacktoberfest by DigitalOcean & partners
- Every single contributor who made their first PR here — welcome to open source! 🎉
⭐ Star • 🍴 Fork • ✏️ Edit • 🔃 Pull Request — Happy Hacking! 🎉