Making my first contribution to an open-source project was a different experience from working on my own projects.
My first contribution was to DevLinks, a project maintained by the Kalvium community. I worked on Issue #19, which was about removing a leftover console.log from the project.
At first, the issue looked very simple. However, because this was my first time contributing to an open-source repository, I had to understand the project before changing anything. I did not want to randomly edit files without knowing how the repository was organized.
I used AI to help me understand the repository and get an idea of how the project was structured. AI was useful for getting started because I was unfamiliar with the codebase. But I did not completely depend on its suggestions. I manually searched through the repository for the leftover console.log statements and checked the actual code myself to find the relevant one.
After identifying the code related to the issue, I made the change on my own branch:
fix/19-remove-console-log
I then committed the change and created my first pull request:
PR #33 — Remove leftover console.log
The most interesting part of this experience was realizing that open-source contribution is not only about writing code. Before making a change, I had to understand an unfamiliar repository, identify the correct place to make the change, follow the project's workflow, and submit my work through a pull request.
I also learned an important lesson about using AI while coding. AI can help me understand an unfamiliar codebase faster, but I still need to verify its suggestions myself. In this contribution, I used AI for understanding the repository, while I manually searched the code and verified the relevant console.log before making the change.
This was a small change, but it was my first step into open source. It gave me more confidence in reading repositories that I did not create myself, and I now have a better understanding of how a real contribution moves from an issue to a pull request.
For my next contribution, I want to take on a slightly more challenging issue and become more comfortable navigating an unfamiliar codebase.
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