Getting Started

A small list of things that you should read and be familiar with before you get started with contributing. This includes such things as signing the Contributor License Agreement, familiarizing yourself with our Code of Conduct and more.

Welcome

Have you ever wanted to contribute to the coolest cloud technology? We will help you understand the organization of the Kubernetes project and direct you to the best places to get started. You’ll be able to pick up issues, write code to fix them, and get your work reviewed and merged.

This document is the single source of truth for how to contribute to the code base. Feel free to browse the open issues and file new ones, all feedback welcome!

Contributor Guide

Welcome to Kubernetes! This guide is broken up into the following sections. It is recommended that you follow these steps in order.

Resources Available

Prerequisites

Before submitting code to the project you should first take care of the following prerequisites. These steps are checked by a bot during your first submission, so doing these steps first will make your first contribution easier:

Sign the CLA

Before you can contribute, you will need to sign the Contributor License Agreement.

Code of Conduct

Please make sure to read and observe our Code of Conduct and Community Values

Setting up your development environment

If you haven’t set up your environment, check the developer resources.

Community Expectations and Roles

Kubernetes is a community project. Consequently, it is wholly dependent on its community to provide a productive, friendly and collaborative environment.

  • Read and review the Community Expectations for an understanding of code and review expectations.
  • See Community Membership for a list the various responsibilities of contributor roles. You are encouraged to move up this contributor ladder as you gain experience.

Kubernetes Contributor Playground

If you are looking for a safe place, where you can familiarize yourself with (some of) the Kubernetes Project’s review and pull request processes, then the Kubernetes Contributor Playground is the right place for you.

Contributor Workshops

A Youtube playlist of the New Contributor workshop has been posted, and an outline of the video content can be found here.

Community

If you haven’t noticed by now, we have a large, lively, and friendly open-source community. We depend on new people becoming members and regular code contributors, so we would like you to come join us! The Community Membership Document covers membership processes and roles.

Communication

Events

Kubernetes participates in KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, held three times per year in China, Europe and in North America. Information about these and other community events is available on the CNCF events pages.

Meetups

We follow the general Cloud Native Computing Foundation guidelines for Meetups. You may also contact CNCF Staff driving the Community Groups (previously known as Meetups) program by email (meetups@cncf.io)

Mentorship

Please learn about our mentoring initiatives here. Feel free to ask us anything during our Meet Our Contributors to connect with us.

Advanced Topics

This section includes things that need to be documented, but typical contributors do not need to interact with regularly.

  • OWNERS files - The Kubernetes organizations are managed with OWNERS files, which outline which parts of the code are owned by what groups.
Making your First Contribution

Not sure where to make your first contribution? This doc has some tips and ideas to help get you started.

Contributing to Kubernetes

An entrypoint to getting started with contributing to the Kubernetes project.

Pull Request Process

Explains the process and best practices for submitting a pull request to the Kubernetes project and its associated sub-repositories. It should serve as a reference for all contributors, and be useful especially to new or infrequent submitters.

GitHub Workflow

An overview of the GitHub workflow used by the Kubernetes project. It includes some tips and suggestions on things such as keeping your local environment in sync with upstream and commit hygiene.

Coding Conventions

A collection of guidelines, style suggestions, and tips for writing code in the different programming languages used throughout the project.

Help Wanted and Good First Issue Labels

Provides guidance on how and when to use the help wanted and good first issue labels. These are used to identify issues that have been specially groomed for new contributors.

Issue Triage Guidelines

These guidelines serve as a primary document for triaging incoming issues to Kubernetes. SIGs and projects are encouraged to use this guidance as a starting point, and customize to address specific triaging needs.

Non-code Contributions

Looking for a good entrance into the project? or to do something different? There are many ways to contribute to the the Kubernetes project without having to have coding experience: issue triage, writing documentation, joining the release team and much more.

Adding Release Notes

Guidance on providing release notes for changes made to the main Kubernetes project repo.

OWNERS Files

OWNERS files are used to designate responsibility over different parts of the Kubernetes codebase and serve as the implementation mechanism for the two-phase code review process used by the project.

Community Expectations

Expectations of conduct and code review that govern all members of the community.