OpenVeda Playbook: CHAOSS

Your guide to contributing to the analytics and metrics that define open-source community health.

1. The "Why": Mission & Impact

• The Mission: CHAOSS (Community Health Analytics Open Source Software) is a Linux Foundation project focused on creating metrics, metrics models, and software to better understand open-source community health, sustainability, and security.
• Your Impact: Your work helps open-source projects understand themselves better. You could be developing new metrics to measure community diversity, building dashboards to visualize project activity, or improving the tools that collect data from GitHub and other sources.
• Why it's great for your career: Contributing to CHAOSS is a unique and powerful signal. It shows you're not just a coder, but you think about the system of open-source. It gives you incredible experience in data analysis, data engineering, and data visualization (D3.js, React). It's a fantastic entry point into the world of data science.

2. The "What": Tech Stack

• Data Collection & Backend: Python is heavily used for data collection scripts (Perceval) and the core analytics engine (GrimoireLab).
• Frontend & Dashboards: JavaScript/TypeScript with React.
• Key Tools: GitHub, Slack, and a strong culture of community meetings via Zoom.

3. The "How": Your Onboarding Journey

3.1: Join the Community

• Primary Channel (Slack): All coordination happens on the CHAOSS Slack.
  • Link: Join the CHAOSS Community Slack
• Your First Action: Introduce yourself in the #newcomers channel. The community is famously welcoming.

3.2: The Setup Guide

• The setup is project-specific. The two main software projects are GrimoireLab (data analysis) and Augur (data collection).
• The Recommended Path: Start by attending a Working Group meeting. The Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Working Group is particularly active and welcoming.
• Official Guide: CHAOSS Newcomer Contribution Guide

3.3: The Contribution Workflow

• Standard GitHub PR process for all software projects.
• Key Point: A huge part of CHAOSS is not software, but defining metrics. You can contribute by participating in discussions in the Working Group meetings and on the mailing lists.

4. GSoC / LFX History & Focus Areas

• Mentorship Focus: CHAOSS is very active in GSoC, Outreachy, and LFX Mentorship. Projects usually involve adding new data sources to their collection tools, creating new visualizations for their dashboards, or implementing new community health metrics.
• What Mentors Look For: Participation. They want to see you in the meetings. They want to see you asking questions on Slack. Community involvement is the #1 prerequisite for mentorship.

5. Key Repositories to Know

• GrimoireLab (Python): github.com/chaoss/grimoirelab - The core data analysis toolchain.
• Augur (Python): github.com/chaoss/augur - Another core data collection and analysis tool.

6. Find Your First Task Right Now

• The Golden Link: This searches for beginner-friendly issues across all of CHAOSS's repositories.
  • Link: "good first issue" across all CHAOSS repos

7. The Unwritten Rules (Mentor Insights)

• Show Up: The weekly and bi-weekly meetings for the Working Groups are the heart of the community. Show up, turn on your camera, listen, and participate.
• Minutes are a Great First Contribution: Volunteer to take notes ("minutes") for a meeting. It's a non-coding contribution that is incredibly valuable and gets you noticed by all the key people.
• It's a Marathon: Understanding the complex world of community metrics takes time. Be patient and focus on learning.