Most first-time contributors never make it past setup. In this workshop, we set up together and then spend the session on real code in Eventyay, FOSSASIA's open source event platform. Conferences use it for ticketing, calls for speakers, schedules and online events.

You'll clone the repository and bring up the full stack with Docker Compose. This runs Django, PostgreSQL, Redis and Celery on your laptop, with sample data and live reload, so your changes show up instantly.

Next, you'll learn to find your way around a real Django + Vue codebase. We'll look at how the containers fit together, where the code behind each page lives, and how to read the logs. Then you'll pick a small issue prepared for this workshop, such as a template, text or UI fix. You'll create a branch, test your change and are ready for your first pull requests.

You'll leave with a working development setup, and a workflow you can reuse. Ready for more?
Bring: A laptop with Docker and Git installed, plus a GitHub account.

Most first-time contributors never make it past setup. In this workshop, we set up together and then spend the session on real code in Eventyay, FOSSASIA's open source event platform. Conferences use it for ticketing, calls for speakers, schedules and online events.

You'll clone the repository and bring up the full stack with Docker Compose. This runs Django, PostgreSQL, Redis and Celery on your laptop, with sample data and live reload, so your changes show up instantly.

Next, you'll learn to find your way around a real Django + Vue codebase. We'll look at how the containers fit together, where the code behind each page lives, and how to read the logs. Then you'll pick a small issue prepared for this workshop, such as a template, text or UI fix. You'll create a branch, test your change and are ready for your first pull requests.

You'll leave with a working development setup, and a workflow you can reuse. Ready for more?
Bring: A laptop with Docker and Git installed, plus a GitHub account.

AI can generate code in seconds, but contributing successfully to a real open-source project requires much more than producing a patch.

In this practical session, we will walk through the journey from finding a GitHub issue to getting a pull request ready for review and merge. Using examples from the FOSSASIA eventyay project, we will look at how AI can help developers understand an unfamiliar codebase, trace relevant code paths, explore existing patterns, draft changes and create tests.

The session will also cover the parts that still require engineering judgment: choosing the right issue, verifying the root cause, keeping changes within scope, following project architecture, testing real behavior and responding to maintainer feedback.

The goal is to show that you do not need to understand an entire large codebase before contributing. With the right workflow, AI can significantly reduce the barrier to entry — while the contributor remains responsible for making the change correct, maintainable and useful to the project.

Participants will leave with a concrete workflow they can use to start contributing to FOSSASIA and other open-source projects.