Hacktoberfest 2019: How you can get your FREE Shirt — even if you’re new to coding

Every October, Digital Ocean and GitHub ship out free Hacktoberfest shirts to thousands of people around the world.

I’ve gotten Hacktoberfest shirts the past two years, and I wear them with pride.

In this quick article, I’ll show you how you can get a Hacktoberfest shirt — even if you have never coded before.

The bottom line is this: if you can open 4 pull requests by October 31, 2019 — and I’ll walk you through how to do this — you can get your own Hacktoberfest shirt shipped to your door for free.

Step #1: Register for Hacktoberfest

You need a GitHub account. If you don’t have one yet, you can create one for free in just a few minutes.

Then go to the Hacktoberfest registration page and follow the instructions. It only takes a moment.

Step #2: Learn how to make a pull request

Pull requests are a way of contributing your code changes to an open-source project. They use a tool called Git, which runs on a social coding platform called GitHub.

GitHub is the center of the open-source universe and is home to projects like Linux and React.js.

It can take months for developers to get good enough to contribute to some of these projects. But the SimpleAsWater community has made it easy for absolute beginners to contribute to our open source project.

You can contribute to SimpleAsWater right in your browser on GitHub. You don’t need to install anything on your computer. You don’t even need to know a programming language. You just need to add items to a list of resources. There are a number of resource lists that you can contribute to:

1. Add Web 3.0 based Hackathons, Meetups
2. Add Web 3.0 based Jobs, Contracts, Internships, and other opportunities
3. Add Web 3.0 based Grants, Bounties

Here’s a short gif showing how you can do this:

The steps are:

1. Open the issues section with 5 topics.
2. Choose any of the topics you want to contribute.
3. Click the topic you like and open it.
4. Read the instructions in the “Where to” part which lists where you can the resources.
5. Read the instructions in the “How to” part and use the templates to see what you need to add.
   Note: You can check out this basic Markdown cheat-sheet if you are new to markdown. You don’t even need to know HTML.
6. Now, use the “Where to” part to collect the resources from the internet.
7. Use the “How to” part to arrange the resources in the format as specified in the template.
8. Now, create a file/folder in the specified folder, as directed in the “How to” part. 
   Note: You can add a file by clicking “Create new file” button on the top. To create a file in a folder, just type “folder_name/file_name” when you enter the file name.
9. Add all the arranged resources that you found.
10. Scroll down and describe your changes in the commit message.
11. Make sure the “Create a new branch for this commit and start a pull request” radio button is selected.
12. Click “Commit Changes.”
13. On the next page, click “Create Pull Request.”

In case you encounter any PROBLEM you can just add a comment on the topic you opened in Step 3, or mail me at [email protected].

As soon as you do this, I will check your contribution. If you followed all the instructions, I will pass and approve your pull request.

Contributing to SimpleAsWater is a good way to ease into contributing to open source. You can also join our contributor chat room to hang out with other contributors and ask questions.

If you are a Web 3.0 enthusiast or are interested in learning more about Web 3.0, you can get involved with us, in our discussions.

We are building the first cross-project community for Web 3.0. There are many benefits to be a part of SimpleAsWater community:

1. We build community-sourced resources, which help the open-source projects to grow and get YOU learning resources free of cost.
2. You get a curated list of Jobs, Internships, Grants, Prizes, Bounties, Hackathons, Meetups…not just that you add in the list, but ones that we get just for you from the Open-Source Projects.
3. And much more… Join our newsletter to know more.

Step #3: OK — now make 3 more pull requests

You can make 3 more pull requests to SimpleAsWater, or whatever open source project you want. Here’s a more detailed guide to contributing to open source, if you’re feeling adventurous.

Step #4: Check and see whether you’ve qualified

Once you’ve signed up for Hacktoberfest, you can check your progress on the Hacktoberfest website.

#5: Wait for your Hacktoberfest 2019 shirt to arrive in the mail

In past years, shirts have arrived in November or December, depending on how far you live from San Francisco.

The Digital Ocean team should eventually contact you asking for your shirt size and shipping address. (Keep in mind they are shipping 10,000+ shirts so this process will take a while.) And yes, they will ship internationally for free.

Frequently asked questions people ask about Hacktoberfest

1. Do contributions made outside of GitHub count?

No, PRs must be made on the GitHub platform.

2. Do issues/commits count?

No, only PRs count.

3. I signed up for Hacktoberfest mid-October. Will PRs that I created earlier in October count?

Yes, all pull requests created between Oct. 1 and Oct. 31 will count, regardless of when you register for Hacktoberfest. Pull requests created before Oct. 1 but merged after do not count.

4. Do issues have to be labeled Hacktoberfest to count?

No, any pull request made on a public repository counts, whether it’s attached to a Hacktoberfest issue or not.

5. Do multiple PRs to the same repo count?

Yes, each pull request will count separately.

6. Do PRs have to be accepted/merged?

No, they will still count unless they are spam, irrelevant, or labeled as invalid.

7. I completed four PRs. When will I receive my T-shirt?

T-shirts will be awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis to the first 50,000 participants who successfully complete the Hacktoberfest challenge. We’ll start sending out emails with more details on redeeming T-shirts throughout the month, so stay tuned.

8. How do I get stickers?

Stickers are included with your T-shirt after completing four PRs.

9. What happens if I complete fewer than four PRs by the end of the month?

Unfortunately, you will have to submit at least four PRs to get a T-shirt.

You can find answers to more FAQs here.

Celebrate Hacktoberfest with the global open source community!

So far this month, we’ve already started getting a lot of pull requests on SimpleAsWater’s repository. And we’re just getting started.

I hope you’ll contribute to the open-source community, learn a few new things, and have fun in the process!