Abigail Cabunoc Mayes works at GitHub to help the open source ecosystem thrive — now and in the future.
At a Maintainer Unconference in Brussels this year, a breakout session had maintainers jotting down thoughts on the future of open source. One sticky note stood out:
As AI gets better at writing code, human work around code becomes more important and more invisible.
Mentoring new contributors, building trust across a community, making the judgement calls that shape a project’s direction: that’s the work that turns a repository into a living collaboration. And with the speed of AI, the people doing the work are carrying more than ever. Pull requests merged on GitHub have nearly doubled year over year, and agentic workflows are accelerating the pace even further. As one maintainer put it:
How much time should I spend on something that you didn’t spend any time on?
I’ve been part of Maintainer Month for five years now. The conversations I’m having with maintainers this year feel different—there’s a weariness, but there’s also innovation. Maintainers are converging on standards like agents.md, building trust systems, and designing workflows that put them back in control. In February, Ashley Wolf named the influx of low-quality contributions open source’s Eternal September. Maintainers told us exactly what they needed. We took notes.
Six years ago we started Maintainer Month because the people behind open source deserve better tools, real resources, and community. This year, we’re going bigger on all three.
Maintainers need better ways to manage who contributes, how, and at what volume. In the Eternal September post, we shared some of the directions we were exploring. Here’s where things stand.
Granular contribution limits: This one’s for every maintainer who’s watched their pull request queue turn into a firehose. This gives maintainers the ability to introduce limits on how many pull requests a new or unknown user can make in your project. No more choosing between closing the doors and opening the floodgates. You control how much you let in.
Pull request archiving pairs with it. Sweep spam pull requests out of public view. No more emailing support to clean up your repo.
And there’s a brand new accessibility best practices guide on opensource.guide. Practical steps to make your project usable by everyone.
And we haven’t been waiting around. Since February, we’ve also shipped:
We’re building these because maintainers asked for them. Specifically, repeatedly…and often loudly! We hear you, and we’re going to keep shipping. Please keep flagging.
We asked companies and foundations across the ecosystem to show up for Maintainer Month. And they did! Sentry, OpenJS Foundation, Daytona, and more partners are putting real resources behind maintainers: free tools, compute credits, threat intelligence, conference tickets, and more.
Open source runs on maintainers, and we’re proud to partner with GitHub to celebrate and support them. As the ecosystem scales, maintainers are doing more than ever to keep projects secure and reliable. Maintainer Month is a chance to connect, share knowledge, and remind them they’re not doing this alone.
Robin Ginn, OpenJS Foundation
Partners across the ecosystem are offering real resources for maintainers. Here’s what’s available:
Last year, Sentry celebrated companies that fund open source on a Times Square billboard for Maintainer Month. That’s the energy we’re looking for.
Want to join them? Whether you’re a company that depends on open source, a startup, or an educator—reach out about the Partner Pack or explore the GitHub Partner Program for more ways to get involved.
Maintainers, here’s where you can claim your Partner Pack benefits.
And if you maintain open source tools for science: the new Open Source for Science Fund just launched with $20 million in funding. Grants up to $1 million for projects supporting data-intensive research. Letters of intent open May 11.
There are 20+ events and streams (and counting!) scheduled throughout Maintainer Month. Here are a few we’re excited about:
We’d love to see you there, whether you maintain a project with millions of users or you’re just getting started.
One thing we heard over and over from maintainers this year: they want to be ”part of something bigger and not just being a solo maintainer.” If you maintain an open source project and want to connect with others who get it, request to join the Maintainer Community, a vetted space to share experiences, get support, and have honest conversations. It’s where the “how are you handling this?” sharing of best practices is happening.
Community members also get access to an exclusive tier of the Partner Pack, with deeper discounts, higher credit limits, and offers you won’t find in the public pack.
Open source is changing fast. What hasn’t changed is that real people wake up every day and choose to maintain the software the world runs on. They do it because they believe in it, and millions of us depend on that choice.
This month is for them. Show up, pitch in, say thank you. Let’s make it count.
See everything happening this Maintainer Month >
Abigail Cabunoc Mayes works at GitHub to help the open source ecosystem thrive — now and in the future.
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