The world wouldn’t be the same without the selfless individuals who build and maintain open source projects every day. From widely-used packages like FFmpeg, to crucial tools like Mozilla Firefox and React, the web stands on the shoulders of giants.

Resend has deep roots in open source. We started with an open source project in 2022, React Email. Cofounders Zeno and Bu were frustrated by how difficult it was to build modern email templates and built React Email, a tool to help developers build beautiful emails using React and TypeScript.

As of today, 174 developers have contributed to React Email.

Today marks the beginning of another Hacktoberfest, a month-long celebration of open source. We invite you to participate in Hacktoberfest by contributing code, documentation, PR reviews, or other additions to open source projects, including React Email.

How to participate

To participate in Hacktoberfest:

1. Sign up on the Hacktoberfest site before October 31.
2. Submit 6 or more pull requests during the month of October.

When a PR is accepted, it will count toward your total. You’ll unlock a digital badge when you sign up, and the first 10,000 contributors to make 6 high-quality submissions get a Hacktoberfest t-shirt.

What counts as a high-quality PR?

For your PRs to be considered high-quality, keep the following considerations in mind:

1. Look for an open source repo that’s participating in Hacktoberfest. You can find repos on sites like GitHub, Good First Issue, and ContribHub. And of course, we’d love to see you contribute to React Email.
2. Ensure that your change is welcome. Browse the GitHub issues and look for an idea that a maintainer has already approved. Sometimes a fresh new feature add can actually be unhelpful because of context that you’re unaware of. Working on something that the maintainer has asked for help with is a great way to ensure that your time is well-spent.
3. Use AI responsibly. When using AI tools, make sure that you understand what the code is doing, and that you could give a detailed explanation when asked.
4. Communicate what your PR is doing. Explain the impact of your PR, why you made certain code design choices, and add screenshots and screen recordings when possible. Do your best to help the maintainers understand what your code is doing.

Contributing to React Email

You can read our guide on contributing to React email here. We’re looking for help with several issues in particular, which you can find on GitHub.

Getting started in a new repository can be overwhelming. Take a look at the codebase overview to learn more about the structure of the React Email codebase before diving in. Then, start getting set up with React Email by visiting the docs.

Find a bug? Have a feature idea? Read the guide to opening issues here.

Other suggested projects

We’d love your support on React Email, but there are many other open source projects that would benefit from your hard work, too. Resend supports several open source projects, including Tailwind, caniemail, and input-otp.

We’re looking forward to seeing the contributions you come up with.

Happy Hacktoberfest!