Contributor Summit 2019 Project Month

Coming soon to a keyboard near you!

Contributor Summit project month is an experimental new format that builds on hack sessions from past Contributor Summits and refocuses on long-term sustainability. We're hoping that not only do you get a supported chance to play with some of our new technology, but you can build it into something that contributes to the larger DevOps community.

Click here to sign up!

We'll kick things off May first with a month-long collaborative hackathon and make our first releases the week of Contributor Summit. If you're attending then you'll even have the opportunity to take the stage for a few minutes to talk about your project! If you'd rather not, we can announce it for you.

We'll work with you via Office Hours throughout the month to help you maximize the value of your time and reduce the amount of overhead you'll have to handle. See below for some of the ways that Puppet can collaborate with you.

There are no real restrictions on what projects you can choose, only two suggestions:

1. You should be able to complete an MVP release in one month.
2. The project should contribute something positive to the world of DevOps.

This means that your project could be anything from a Puppet module, to a CI or testing framework, to enhanced documentation for another project, to a process or pattern proposal. The possibilities are endless!

We're glad that you're joining us on this adventure. It will be fun!

Getting Started

It's easy to get going and mostly self-directed. Just let us know what you're working on and what we can do to help you out. You can sign up for Project Month now and let us know you're interested, even if you don't know yet what you want to work on. We'll remind you when it's time to get the party started.

Much of our coordination and conversation will take place in the Puppet Community Slack.

We recommend that you keep your project in a GitHub (or other hosting service) repository. We've put together a few tips on project management in a GitHub repository. If you'd like, you can also use this repository and the attached project board as a template, but you're certainly not required to.

If you need Git or GitHub help, you might start with these guides:

• Getting Started on GitHub
• Git Handbook
• ...all GitHub Guides

Collaboration Resources Provided

We would like to help ensure your success. We'll be working with you to help keep your projects on track. We'll provide resources to help you define your project scope and set roadmap goals, then check in with you roughly weekly to see how you're doing. (Office Hours are scheduled for each Wednesday, but we can interact outside that time as well.) In addition, during the project month we'll provide several resources and services that you might not otherwise have access to.

The full Office Hour schedule is always available, but during this month, we'll also provide extra resources in the form of webinars or downloaded materials. If warranted, we may also provide short one-on-one chats or video consultations. The Puppet community team will coordinate with each of you to ensure that you receive all the help you need.

See the resources list to see examples of what we could offer.

Project Ideas

If you need a little inspiration to come up with a project idea, we've put together a list of some suggestions. Feel free to use what you'd like from here, no credit is needed.

If you'd like to collaborate with others for your project, please put a prominent note in your project's README.md and socialize your idea in the #contributor-summit Slack channel. And conversely, if you're looking to join a project, ask in channel. Starting on May 1, we'll also add a list of projects to this page.

Questions?

• Can I work on an existing project?
  • Sure! It would help us keep track of projects if you forked this repository and add your charter and a link to the actual project repository as the README.md
• Can I work on something that's not software?
  • Absolutely. Use this month to write a DevOps book, if you'd like! Just define the scope of your project and any deliverables appropriately.
• How will we communicate during the project month?
  • Project coordinators may contact you via email or Slack.
  • We'll hold weekly #office-hours on Slack.
  • We've also got a #contributor-summit Slack channel for conversation any time.
  • Email [email protected] if you need anything.
• What if I have other questions?
  • Email [email protected] and we'll do our best to answer it!