firstcontributions /first-contributions

🚀✨ Help beginners to contribute to open source projects

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MITCreated 2016-09-20firstcontributions.github.io
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README

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 First Contributions

This project aims to simplify and guide the way beginners make their first contribution. If you are looking to make your first contribution, follow the steps below.

_If you're not comfortable with command line, here are tutorials using GUI tools._



 If you don't have git on your machine, install it.

 Fork this repository

Fork this repository by clicking on the fork button on the top of this page.
This will create a copy of this repository in your account.

 Clone the repository



Now clone the forked repository to your machine. Go to your GitHub account, open the forked repository, click on the code button, then on SSH tab and then click the _copy url to clipboard_ icon.

Open a terminal and run the following git command:

bash
git clone "url you just copied"


where "url you just copied" (without the quotation marks) is the url to this repository (your fork of this project). See the previous steps to obtain the url.



For example:

bash
git clone [email protected]:this-is-you/first-contributions.git


where this-is-you is your GitHub username. Here you're copying the contents of the first-contributions repository on GitHub to your computer.

 Create a branch

Change to the repository directory on your computer (if you are not already there):

bash
cd first-contributions


Now create a branch using the git switch command:

bash
git switch -c your-new-branch-name


For example:

bash
git switch -c add-alonzo-church



 If you get any errors using git switch, click here: 

If the error message "Git: switch is not a git command. See git –help" appears, it's likely because you're using an older version of git.

In this case, try to use git checkout instead:

bash
git checkout -b your-new-branch-name




 Make necessary changes and commit those changes

Now open Contributors.md file in a text editor, add your name to it. Don't add it at the beginning or end of the file. Put it anywhere in between. Now, save the file.



If you go to the project directory and execute the command git status, you'll see there are changes.

Add those changes to the branch you just created using the git add command:

bash
git add Contributors.md


Now commit those changes using the git commit command:

bash
git commit -m "Add your-name to Contributors list"


replacing your-name with your name.

 Push changes to GitHub

Push your changes using the command git push:

bash
git push -u origin your-branch-name


replacing your-branch-name with the name of the branch you created earlier.


 If you get any errors while pushing, click here: 

-  Authentication Error
     remote: Support for password authentication was removed on August 13, 2021. Please use a personal access token instead.
  remote: Please see https://github.blog/2020-12-15-token-authentication-requirements-for-git-operations/ for more information.
  fatal: Authentication 

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Snapshot: 2026-11-10T09:35:25Z · Data license Apache-2.0 · JSON