How to get started contributing to Helix (as a beginner crustacean)

[Joshua-I-796]

Hi im looking forward to contributing to the Helix Editor project but I've never contributed to any project before nor do I have substantial GitHub experience. Kindly Advise

[m4rch3n1ng]

not trying to completely discourage you, but i don't personally think, that helix is a great project for your first github contribution.

the code is quite neat and well organized, but maintenance has stagnated a bunch and there are a lot of open prs and very few are actually getting merged, which i think could be discouraging if that is your first experience.

now i need to say, that i do not have any other project in mind, that i could guide you towards instead, but i just wanted to give my two cents.

[croxln]

While it's true that Helix's PR review queue moves rather slowly right now because maintainer bandwidth is limited, you can still learn a ton from the codebase if you want to explore it:

1. Get the build running locally:
   Clone the repo and run cargo build and cargo test. Helix has a very clean workspace architecture (helix-core, helix-term, helix-view).
2. Start by reading and experimenting with commands:
   Take a look at helix-term/src/commands.rs. Most editor actions and keybindings live there, and seeing how they interact with Editor state is one of the easiest ways to understand the architecture without getting lost in tree-sitter or rendering logic.
3. Reproduce or test open issues/PRs:
   Before writing new features, try pulling down a recent open PR or reproducing a reported bug locally. Testing other people's fixes is one of the best ways to get comfortable with the git/PR workflow without the pressure of having to write everything from scratch.
4. Chat with contributors:
   Join the Helix Matrix space (#helix-community:matrix.org / #helix-editor:matrix.org). People are generally helpful if you ask about a specific area you're looking into before opening a large PR.

If you find the PR review wait time discouraging for your first contributions, you can also look at smaller Rust CLI/TUI tools (like
atatui ecosystem crates or tree-sitter grammar repos) to get comfortable with git/PR cycles alongside exploring Helix.