Open source software means the source code is public, forkable, and free to build on. GitHub hosts the majority of it. This guide from the GitHub Blog teaches you how to find projects, read a repository, and make your first contribution, using tools already built into GitHub.
The most useful technique in the article: querying GitHub Copilot Chat with a filtered prompt to surface repositories tagged 'good first issue' with over 100 stars in a language you already know. The vscode repository is used as a worked example. That specificity matters because beginners waste time on projects with no onboarding path or stale maintainers.
The full article goes further than the summary, covering how to read a contributor guide, interpret repository structure, and submit a pull request without getting rejected on process grounds. If you have never touched an OSS codebase, the step-by-step on navigating labels and issues alone is worth the read.
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