How to Choose and Contribute Effectively to a Beginner-Friendly Issue for GSSoC?

[Freewill-stack]

Hi everyone! 👋

I’m participating in GirlScript Summer of Code (GSSoC) and exploring this project to start contributing meaningfully. I’ve gone through the repository and its issues, but I want to ensure that my first contribution aligns well with the project’s expectations and roadmap.

Before I begin, I have a few questions:

Is there a recommended workflow for selecting a beginner-friendly issue in this repository?
For example, should new contributors start with documentation, small bug fixes, or specific modules?

Are there any coding standards, architectural guidelines, or contribution patterns that I should strictly follow before opening a PR?

Are there open issues (or upcoming planned tasks) that the maintainers feel are especially suitable for GSSoC contributors?

What are the common mistakes first-time contributors tend to make in this project, and how can I avoid them?

My goal is to make high-quality contributions while understanding the project’s conventions. Any guidance, recommended issues, or tips from maintainers and past contributors would be extremely helpful!

Thanks in advance! 🙌

[Sumitchongder]

Here is a polished paragraph-style professional answer you can post on GitHub Discussions:

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Thanks for your detailed question, and welcome to the project! It’s great to see your enthusiasm for contributing through GSSoC. For beginners, we always recommend starting with issues labeled as good first issue, beginner-friendly, or help wanted, as these are specifically curated to help new contributors get comfortable with the codebase. Before selecting an issue, it’s a good idea to quickly read through the project structure and the CONTRIBUTING.md file so you understand our coding style, formatting rules, commit message standards, and the expected workflow for raising a pull request. We also encourage contributors to comment on an issue before starting work so maintainers can assign it and confirm that the approach aligns with the project’s requirements.

We do have several issues marked for GSSoC participants, and more will be added as the program progresses. These include documentation improvements, minor bug fixes, UI updates, and modular enhancements that don’t require deep architectural understanding. Once you build familiarity with the project, you can gradually move toward more complex features or refactoring tasks. One common mistake new contributors make is submitting large, unfocused pull requests; it’s always better to keep PRs small, well-scoped, and clearly documented. Another frequent issue is forgetting to sync the forked repository before creating a PR, which often leads to avoidable merge conflicts. Ensuring your code follows our linting/formatting checks and providing a clear explanation of the problem and solution will significantly speed up the review process.

Overall, the best approach is to start small, communicate frequently, and gradually increase the complexity of your contributions. We appreciate thoughtful, well-tested, and well-documented work, and we’re always happy to guide contributors whenever needed. Welcome once again, and we look forward to your contributions throughout GSSoC!