Contributor Onboarding

In this hands-on activity, participants will explore the Make WordPress contributor ecosystem to make their first real contribution to the WordPress open-source project. Operating entirely within a modern web browser, attendees will interact with make.wordpress.org and GitHub.com without needing any local installations, coding knowledge, or prior contribution experience. Participants will hands-on create three essential accounts—a WordPress.org account, a WordPress Slack account, and a GitHub account—before selecting a beginner-friendly path from the seven official contributor pathways (Build, Design, Write, Translate, Test, Organize, and Promote). The session concludes with a practical execution phase where participants complete a step-by-step contribution task—such as filing a documentation issue on GitHub, submitting a translation string, or filing a test report—and capture their successful result via a screenshot workflow for a final group debrief.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Identify Contributor Teams: Recognize at least two contributor teams that make up the WordPress open source project and describe what each one works on by scanning the ecosystem team list.
• Interpret Contributor Pathways: Explain the purpose of the seven WordPress contributor pathways and identify what types of entry-level contributions are explicitly available to beginners.
• Configure Required Accounts: Setup and verify the three specific free accounts required for active community participation: a WordPress.org account, a WordPress Slack account via make.wordpress.org/chat/, and a free GitHub plan account.
• Utilize Official Handbooks: Navigate the step-by-step instructions hosted on the make.wordpress.org/handbook/pathways/ hub to choose and execute a targeted task.
• Execute an Open-Source Contribution: Complete at least one real contribution to the WordPress open source project using an official beginner pathway, such as submitting a translation string, filing a documentation issue on GitHub, or submitting a test report.
• Evaluate Personal Alignment: Assess which specific contributor pathways and communication channels best match their own technical skills, interests, and availability for future involvement.