I’ve been working on Bitcoin-related OSS for a while now - long enough that I don’t fear git reflog anymore.

As you might guess, there was a time when I used to feel scared just thinking about the whole you-publish-your-code-and-then-strangers-look-at-it thing - luckily for me, I had friends¹ helping me out, encouraging me to venture out my comfort zone, reading my code before I would post it and, why not, helping me with merge conflicts.

There are many people out there who are smart and humble enough to contribute significantly to Bitcoin, but are not as lucky as I am, and feel quite lost - this is my way of trying to help. In this post will cover the fundamentals for starting to contribute to open source projects:

• How to pick the right project
• How to start diving into the code
• How to review code
• How to write code

I’m well aware that a blog post isn’t as helpful as a IRL mentor, but hey, I’m doing what I can :)