So you want to contribute to Rust, but feel overwhelmed?

Hey folks!

I've been seeing this question come up again and again - in comments, DMs, Zulip, everywhere:

I want to contribute to Rust, but I open the repo, see millions of files, issues and things to do… and just freeze, how do I start?

I just finished today a long-form post about getting past that exact point

This post isn't a tutorial or a checklist and it not intended to replace the rustc-dev-guide

Instead is more about:

• how I personally got started contributing to the compiler
• what actually helped when I felt stuck
• how reviews, CI, mentors, and mistakes really look from the inside
• what labels and issues are actually beginner-friendly

The post is intentionally long and not meant to be read linearly - it's something you can skim, jump around, or come back to later

If you:

• write Rust
• have thought about contributing
• but feel intimidated by the scale

• this is for you

https://kivooeo.github.io/blog/first-part-of-contibuting/

This is just the first part - in the next post, I'm planning to walk through a real issue from start to merge. Stay tuned if you're curious about how it looks in practice (I haven't figured out RSS yet, but I'll definitely do it soon!)