OpenVeda Playbook: Open Food Facts

Your guide to contributing to a global, mission-driven project for food transparency and health.

1. The "Why": Mission & Impact

• The Mission: Open Food Facts is a free, open, and collaborative database of food products from around the world. Its mission is to decipher food labels and provide clear, understandable information (like nutritional scores and allergen info) to help everyone make better food choices.
• Your Impact: Your code helps power a platform used by millions of consumers, scientists, and journalists. You could be improving the mobile app that people use in the grocery store, enhancing the website's data visualizations, or writing scripts to import new food data. This is code with a direct, positive impact on public health.
• Why it's great for your career: Contributing to Open Food Facts is fantastic for your portfolio. It's a highly respected GSoC organization and shows you can work on a data-intensive, multi-platform project. It's one of the best places to get real-world experience with Flutter, Google's modern mobile UI framework, or even unique backend languages like Perl.

2. The "What": Tech Stack

• Backend Server: Perl. (This is the "old" part. You can contribute to many other areas without knowing Perl).
• Frontend (Web): JavaScript.
• Mobile App (The Best Place to Start): Dart using the Flutter framework. This is their main focus for new development.
• AI/ML: Python is used for various data analysis and machine learning tasks on their massive dataset.
• Key Tools: GitHub for code, Slack for all community communication.

3. The "How": Your Onboarding Journey

3.1: Join the Community

• Primary Channel (Slack): The community is extremely active and welcoming on Slack. This is a mandatory first step.
  • Link: Request an invite to the Open Food Facts Slack
• Your First Action: Once you join, go to the #general channel and post a clear introduction.

  Template: "Hello everyone! I'm Ayush, a developer from India. I'm really passionate about the mission of Open Food Facts and I'd love to start contributing, especially to the Flutter app. I'm setting up the environment now and looking for a good first issue. Thanks!"

3.2: The Foolproof Environment Setup (Focus: The Flutter App)

We'll focus on their modern mobile app, as it's the best entry point.

1. Prerequisites: You need Git and the Flutter SDK installed and configured on your machine. Follow the official Flutter "Get Started" guide first.
2. Fork & Clone: Fork the smooth-app repo on GitHub and clone your fork locally.
3. Navigate into the folder: cd smooth-app
4. Get Dependencies: Run flutter pub get.
5. Run the App: Connect your phone or start an emulator, then run flutter run.
6. Access: The app should build and launch on your device/emulator!

• Official Guide (for reference): The smooth-app README is your guide.
• Common Troubleshooting Tip: Most issues are related to the initial Flutter SDK setup. Running flutter doctor -v in your terminal is your best friend; it will tell you exactly what's missing or misconfigured in your environment.

3.3: The Contribution Workflow

The workflow is a standard, beginner-friendly GitHub process.

1. Find an Issue: Find a "good first issue" on the GitHub repository.
2. Claim it: Leave a comment: "Hi, I'm new here and I'd like to take this on!"
3. Create a Branch: git checkout -b fix/short-issue-description
4. Code & Test: Make your changes. Run the app and test your change thoroughly on a real device or emulator.
5. Commit & Push: Push your branch to your fork.
6. Open a Pull Request: Open a PR against their develop branch. In the description, include screenshots or a short screen recording (GIF) showing your change. This is very important for UI contributions.
7. Engage in Review: The maintainers are friendly and provide great feedback.

4. GSoC History & Focus Areas

• Historical Focus: Open Food Facts is a very active GSoC organization. Projects almost always focus on their Flutter mobile app, adding major new features like personalized dietary alerts, improved scanning capabilities, or a better offline mode. There are also often projects related to AI/ML with Python.
• What Mentors Look For: Initiative and a user-focused mindset. They love contributors who not only code but also suggest improvements to the user experience. Making one or two small, successful PRs to the Flutter app before GSoC is the best way to get selected.

5. Key Repositories to Know

• The Flutter App (smooth-app): github.com/openfoodfacts/smooth-app - Start here.
• The Perl Backend (openfoodfacts-server): github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-server (More advanced).
• Python tools: github.com/openfoodfacts/openfoodfacts-python.

6. Find Your First Task Right Now

• The Golden Link (Mobile App): This is the best place for beginners.
  • Link: "good first issue" on the Flutter app
• Backend Issues (More Advanced):
  • Link: "good first issue" on the main server repo

7. The Unwritten Rules (Mentor Insights)

• The App is the Priority: The community's energy is heavily focused on the smooth-app (Flutter). Contributing here is the fastest way to get involved and get mentored.
• GIFs are Mandatory (Almost): For any UI change, a screen recording is expected in your PR. It makes the review process 10x faster for the maintainers.
• Be a User: Download the official Open Food Facts app from the Play Store/App Store. Use it. Scan products. Understand its strengths and weaknesses. This user empathy will make your contributions much more valuable.