Jess Lee

for The DEV Team

Posted on Oct 1 • Edited on Oct 6

🎃 Spotlight your projects and contributions as you go: 2025 Hacktoberfest Writing Challenge is now live!

#devchallenge #hacktoberfest #opensource

It's that time of the year again!!

For anyone new, Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open source that brings together contributors and maintainers from around the world, with the goal of getting as many people as possible involved with open source.

Whether you're making your first pull request or maintaining projects that power the internet, this challenge is for you!

Our Prompts

Unlike last year's challenge which focused solely on end-of-month reflections, this year's writing challenge is designed to happen in parallel with your Hacktoberfest participation if desired.

We want to help drive visibility for maintainer projects and encourage contributors to write about their contributions while the experience is still fresh. And don't worry, we still have a prompt for reflections for anyone who would prefer to to code now and write later.

Maintainer Spotlight - Share Your Project

For maintainers: Showcase the open source project you maintain and invite contributors to get involved!

Tell us about your project, what makes it special, why you're passionate about maintaining it, and how others can contribute.

Submit Maintainer Spotlight

This is your chance to attract new contributors, celebrate your community, and share what you've learned as a maintainer.

Prompt 2: Contribution Chronicles - Share Your Impact

For contributors: Highlight the contributions you're making during Hacktoberfest and what you learned along the way!

Whether you're documenting a single meaningful contribution or reflecting on multiple PRs across different projects, we want to hear about it.

Submit Contribution Chronicles

Share the issues you tackled, the projects you discovered, the challenges you overcame, and what you gained from participating. You can write one post per contribution or combine them all into a single reflection.

Prompt 3: Open Source Reflections

For everyone: Reflect on your Hacktoberfest experience and what open source means to you.

Share your thoughts on participating in Hacktoberfest 2025. What did you learn? How did it change your perspective on open source? What advice would you give to someone considering participating next year?

Submit Open Source Reflections

This prompt welcomes all voices: maintainers, contributors, first-timers, and veterans alike.

Already been publishing with the #hacktoberfest tag? Great news! We'll consider all posts published during the challenge period (October 1 - November 2) with the #hacktoberfest tag as a submission.

Important Note: Please review our judging criteria, rules, guidelines, and FAQ page before submitting so you understand our participation guidelines and official contest rules such as eligibility requirements.

Judging Criteria and Prizes

All prompts will be judged on the following:

Style and Presentation
Clarity
Originality

The winner of each prompt will receive:

DEV++ Membership
Exclusive DEV Badge

Each prompt will have at least one winner (possibly more depending on how many people complete the challenge) and all participants who publish a valid submission will receive a completion badge.

Important Dates

October 1: Hacktoberfest begins! Start contributing and writing!
November 2: Submissions due at 11:59 PM PST
November 20: Winners announced

Questions?

Drop your questions in the comments below. We're here to help you craft your best submission!

Good luck and happy writing! 🎃✍️

Top comments (10)

fmerian • Oct 2

my humble contribution:

Supporting open-source projects on Product Hunt

fmerian ・ Oct 1

#showdev #opensource #hacktoberfest #devchallenge

if you're planning a product launch, hmu. oss ftw!

Anthony Max • Oct 2

We'll give it a try! I've never participated in challenges before, but I wrote it as best I could!

Louis Girifalco • Oct 3

This is awesome! Going to work on our submission this weekend. Thank you for providing the platform and visibility!

Laureline Paris • Oct 18 • Edited

Ohhh, I just discovered this Dev.to writing challenge 🙌
Thanks for the great prompts and all the organisation behind it!
I'll definitely give it a shot !

Let’s give it a try and challenge ourselves by sharing more of our experiences!

🤞🚀 Good luck everyone!

Ben Halpern The DEV Team • Oct 2

Good luck everyone!

Gohar • Oct 5

Start early; pick projects you use and read their issues/labels (“good first issue”).
Join the project chat/Discord; ask concise questions; ship one tiny fix fast.
Focus on docs, tests, and tooling—impactful and welcomed.
Be respectful in reviews, iterate quickly, and celebrate small wins.