SerenityOS/serenity

Looking for good first issues? Read this 😊

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#26771 opened on May 13, 2026

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good first issue

Description

If you're reading this because you'd like to start hacking on SerenityOS:

Welcome!

For finding things to work on, we recommend building the system and playing with it. Fairly soon, you'll run into something small that doesn't work quite right or that you think could be better. Try to fix that. Start small, and if you're having a good time, stick with it and eventually do bigger things.

Feel free to jump on https://serenityos.org/discord/ if you'd like to chat. Or don't if you don't want to, it's not a prerequisite.

We stopped tagging issues with "good first issue", for two reasons:

  1. It's work to maintain a good "good first issue" list, more work than just fixing these issues ourselves
  2. Doing this work for new contributors – you?! – robs them of the process of discovery. While we had lots of good contributions from "good first issue" in the past, we also had a fair share of drive-by fixes that weren't all that thoughtful. We think people finding their own pet peeves overall is a better onboarding ramp.

Contributor guide

Tech stack
None
Domain
documentation
Issue type
documentation
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
1
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
under 1 hour
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
None
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
100
Research direction
This issue is a welcoming guide for new contributors to SerenityOS. It does not contain a specific task but directs contributors to explore the system and find their own pet peeves to fix. No files or code changes are involved; it's purely informational. Maintainers have not indicated any additional action needed.