text: ---
  title: "Celebrate Hacktoberfest with Gatsby!"
  date: 2018-10-09
  author: "Amberley Romo"
  tags: ["hacktoberfest", "open-source"]
  ---
  
  Happy October, everyone! We’re stoked, because October means… Hacktoberfest!
  
  ## What is Hacktoberfest?
  
  “Hacktoberfest is a [month-long celebration of open source software](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/faq) run by DigitalOcean in partnership with GitHub and Twilio.”
  
  Hacktoberfest encourages open source contributions by motivating open source projects to create and label contributor-friendly issues, and pseudo-gamifying the participation of contributors. To take part:
  
  - [sign up](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/sign_up/register) to participate, and
  - submit five quality pull requests to public GitHub repositories (within the time frame of October 1–31).
  
  So far, [30+ people have contributed](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues?q=is%3Aissue+sort%3Aupdated-desc+label%3AHacktoberfest+is%3Aclosed) to close out Gatsby Hacktoberfest issues, and [there are 35 open](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues?q=is%3Aissue+sort%3Aupdated-desc+label%3AHacktoberfest+is%3Aopen) Hacktoberfest issues, with more on the way.
  
  If you are one of the first 50,000 people to complete five pull requests, the Hacktoberfest project will send you a t-shirt!
  
  Check out the complete participation details and rules over at the [Hacktoberfest site](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/details).
  
  ## Why celebrate Hacktoberfest with Gatsby?
  
  We couldn’t be more excited about Hacktoberfest -- it’s right up our alley! Back in August, we were excited to celebrate hitting 1,000 contributors! (As of this writing, it’s 1,197 😄)
  
  https://twitter.com/gatsbyjs/status/1027876829615595520
  
  Gatsby is a great project to contribute to because you can learn about Gatsby while tackling a list of carefully curated issues, prepared especially for Hacktoberfest.
  
  Our Hacktoberfest goals are:
  
  1. To provide a range of issues with a clearly defined scope, with minimal background knowledge needed outside of the issue description.
  2. To make contributing to Gatsby as welcoming, friendly, and accessible as we can -- especially to first-time contributors.
  
  Plus, if you’ve never contributed to Gatsby before, after your very first PR is merged, you can redeem some [free Gatsby swag](/contributing/contributor-swag/)! (_Note: Not Hacktoberfest related. We do this always!_)
  
  https://twitter.com/ryanwiemer/status/1022267081998266368
  
  We so appreciate everyone who puts in the time to contribute to making Gatsby, and the whole open source community, even better 💜.
  
  ## How do first-time contributors get started?
  
  Here are [all the open Hacktoberfest issues](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues?q=is%3Aissue+sort%3Aupdated-desc+label%3AHacktoberfest+is%3Aopen)!
  
  You may also want to check out [the main issue](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/8719) that’s organizing our Hacktoberfest efforts. While you don’t need to close out an issue labeled with “Hacktoberfest” specifically to participate (just submit a PR to public repos), issues marked with “Hacktoberfest” are specifically designed and written to be more accessible to first-time contributors!
  
  Through the month, we’ll be continuously curating and adding “Hacktoberfest” labeled issues targeting many different facets of the Gatsby ecosystem (docs, core, packages, etc). If everything is claimed, don’t worry! More issues are being added regularly. (And of course feel free to peruse [other open issues](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues) in the queue). This is our first time actively organizing around Hacktoberfest, and we aim to be as responsive and supportive as possible.
  
  If you’re considering contributing to Gatsby for the first time -- or if you've already contributed -- we’re so glad you’re here!
  
  ## Still have questions?
  
  For general questions, you could comment on the [main Hacktoberfest issue](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/8719), or [tweet at us](https://twitter.com/gatsbyjs). For issue-specific questions, comment directly on the issue. When you open a PR, we’ll work with you to get it merged!
  
  ## Quick links
  
  - [Hacktoberfest registration page](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/sign_up/register)
  - [Hacktoberfest FAQs](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/faq)
  - [Gatsby Hacktoberfest](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/8719)
  