Becoming an Astro maintainer
Tags: astro, opensource, javascript, webdev
Published: 2023-04-13 08:46:00

A week ago, I got a DM from Dan ([@jutanium](https://github.com/jutanium)). The DM simply said: "*hey, I heard some news came out, any idea what it is?*". I was at a family gathering, so I missed the DM by a couple of hours.

Turned out, I completely missed a DM from [Fred](https://twitter.com/fredkschott) (co-founder of Astro and CEO of HTML), saying that I was nominated and voted as a new maintainer on Astro and asking if I would accept. Of course I couldn't be happier 🥳!

Astro's maintainer and core programs are based on a nomination and voting system, there is no application process. So I wasn't expecting this, but I made a little jump when I read the message!

It's a real honour and I'm so privileged to be able to work next to so many outstanding people and learn from them!

👇 Image [Astro tweeted](https://twitter.com/astrodotbuild/status/1642981721019940866) a couple hours after I accepted!

![Promo image containing Astro's mascotte with the words "New Maintainer: Elian van Cutsem"](https://i.imgur.com/bb7O3Nq.jpg)

## Getting started in open source

Since I get a lot of questions on how to get started into open source. It's a good time to shine a some light on that topic.

This is different for everyone, so don't take it as a recipe for success. There was also a lot of luck involved.

My open source story started somewhere around 2021. I was still studying and working on an essay about frameworks (specifically JAMStack focused) for school and came across Astro. When I read through the documentation for the first time, the concept instantly made something click. It reminded me a lot of PHP, which I used to do a lot. The island architecture looked so simple and useful that I wanted to give it a spin. My first experience with using Astro felt so natural. The onboarding and DX was so awesome!

Don't take the following as a guide, but if it worked for me, it can work for you too!

### Astro's Discord

After playing around with Astro for a couple of weeks, I joined [their Discord server](https://astro.build/chat). I remember looking at [Astro's website](https://astro.build) sourcecode and seeing a Discord link show up in the browser's console. I simply had to take a look what was going on there.

I felt so welcome in the server! Everyone was so friendly and helping each other out. There were a lot of interesting conversations going on about a lot of different topics, which enabled me to learn a lot.

At that time, the Astro Discord was a small community and because of that, it was easy to talk to core members and ask them questions, which I totally did all the time while I was rebuilding my personal website.

## My first PR at Astro

While learning Astro, I noticed that the Astro website didn't have a 404 page. I instantly thought; "Hey, I know how to do that!". So I asked in Discord if it was okay to build one and open up a PR. 

I opened my first PR on 6 October 2021: [link to PR](https://github.com/withastro/astro/pull/1501)

Back then, I was completely new to open source and had totally no idea what I was doing, so yeah, look at me now! I know my mom is proud of me!

## First talk about Astro

Because I talked a lot to maintainers and core at that time & felt like this was such a new and fresh direction at web development, I decided to try and give a talk about it at a meetup in my city about it. From there, the ball started rolling!

![A picture of Elian speaking in front of an audience at a meetup](https://i.imgur.com/KFZx2CD.jpg)

☝️ My first time talking about Astro

Since then, I've given about a dozen talks about Astro. Most of them were very beginner friendly and -oriented. I hope that I introduced some people to their first steps in the magical universe of Astro.

## Becoming an Astronaut

After my first talk and some little PRs, I felt like a part of the Astro team! A big boost in that, was [Fuzzy](https://twitter.com/afuzzybear2) helping me prepare talks, guide me through PR's and awarding me with the unofficial official "Astro Ambassador" title.

It still baffles me how friendly the whole open source community is. I made a lot of friends among the contributors and core members of Astro and open source in general.

Another shifting point for me was [React Brussels](https://www.react.brussels/). This was my first ever experience at a JS-focused conference. I met so many people that I still talk to, such as [Dan](https://twitter.com/jutanium) and [Josh](https://twitter.com/JoshuaKGoldberg). It motivated me so much to spend more time in open source and Astro in specific.

You can also check [this interview with Taz from Guild recorded at React Brussels](https://youtu.be/ZIyEZtARlq8)

![A picture of a room full of people busy talking at React Brussels](https://i.imgur.com/22LHxKV.jpg)

☝️ Me, talking to people at React Brussels. (Yup, this is where I met Dan and Josh for the first time)


## What's next?

There is a lot I want to accomplish as a maintainer at Astro.

### 1. The ambassador program at Astro

I want to introduce some kind of ambassador program into Astro! A program where we (as maintainers or core members) help people speaking about Astro, get involved into the community. **Not every contribution to open source, has to be code.**. This can contain a couple of things, technical writing, blogposts, doing support, giving talks, ... . With this program, I think we could improve the knowledge about Astro.

### 2. Astro: Explain It Like I'm Five (ELI5)

A new series where I (or someone else) explains Astro (or maybe even general web) concepts on a very easy-to-understand level! This to increase the general knowledge about Astro and make it accessible to all levels of engineers.

### 3. Improve docs

Since I tend to do talks about Astro from time to time, I also see myself as an entrypoint into the Astro ecosystem. Because of that, I get a lot of questions from newcomers to the Astro ecosystem. I try to use those to improve Astro's documentation and examples to make it as easy and accessible for everyone from every skill level as possible.

### 4. Get the best DX possible!

One of the reasons I was drawn to Astro was the developer experience. I'm always betting on it and I think Astro still could improve on it. So I'm going to make it one of my goals to keep increasing and learning about developer experience!


## The future is bright

I'm so happy and excited to be part of Astro's community. I hope to make a positive impact not only in the Astro eco-system, but also in the wider open-source space.

Don't hesitate to reach out to me! I'm easiest to reach on Discord or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/eliancodes).