What is Hacktoberfest?
Hacktoberfest is an annual month-long celebration of open source software run by DigitalOcean in October. Participants who complete 4 valid pull requests on GitHub earn a limited-edition t-shirt or can plant a tree as a digital reward.
Registration (Opens October 1)
Visit hacktoberfest.com and sign in with your GitHub or GitLab account. Registration is free and global.
What Counts as a Valid Contribution?
- Pull requests to public repositories marked with the 'hacktoberfest' topic
- At least 4 PRs must be merged or approved by maintainers
- PRs must not be marked as spam or invalid
- Low-quality PRs (fixing typos, etc.) may be rejected
Best Repositories for Beginners
- first-contributions/first-contributions — perfect first PR
- EddieHub/LinkFree — add your developer profile
- public-apis/public-apis — add a new API
- 30-seconds/30-seconds-of-code — add code snippets
Swag Policy 2026
DigitalOcean offers a digital reward (NFT badge or tree plant). Many companies also offer their own Hacktoberfest swag — check the Hacktoberfest Swag List maintained by community members.
Pro Tips
- Start October 1 to have the full month
- Read CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting
- Avoid mass PR spam — maintainers will mark you as invalid
- Focus on issues labeled 'good first issue' or 'hacktoberfest'