OpenVeda Playbook: The Wikimedia Foundation

The definitive encyclopedia for contributing to the engine behind Wikipedia. Your journey from newcomer to core contributor starts here.

The Mission: To empower and engage people to collect and develop educational content under a free license and disseminate it globally. You are building the infrastructure for free knowledge.
Your Impact: Your code will run on one of the world's top 10 websites, serving over 18 billion page views per month. The scale is astronomical.
Why it's a Career Supercharger: A merged patch in MediaWiki is a globally recognized badge of honor. It proves you can navigate a massive, complex, and mission-critical codebase. It's a GSoC powerhouse that signals technical rigor and patience.

Core Backend: PHP (Modern, using Composer), Python (for services & ML), Node.js (for services).
Core Frontend: JavaScript (ES6+), Vue.js (for modern UIs), jQuery (in legacy code).
Mobile Apps: Java & Kotlin (Android), Swift (iOS).
Infrastructure: MariaDB, Elasticsearch, Cassandra, Kafka.
Critical Tools:
- Version Control: Gerrit (NOT GitHub for code review).
- Task Tracking: Phabricator (phabricator.wikimedia.org).
- Dev Environment: Docker is the standard.

Primary Channel (IRC): This is where real-time help happens. Be patient and polite.
- For Newcomers: #mediawiki on Libera.Chat.
- General Dev: #wikimedia-dev on Libera.Chat.
- Web Client: Libera.Chat Web Client.
Secondary Channel (Mailing List): For deep discussions.
- Link: Wikitech-l Mailing List.

Wikimedia Developer Account: Create one here. This is your passport to everything.
Phabricator: Log in to phabricator.wikimedia.org with your dev account.

The Goal: Get a running, local version of Wikipedia on your laptop.
The Path: MediaWiki-Dev Docker Image.
1. Install Docker & Docker Compose.
2. Clone: git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/devenv.git
3. Enter: cd devenv
4. Launch: docker-compose up -d
5. Wait. It will download many large images. This can take 10-20 minutes.
6. Access: http://localhost:8080.
Official Guide: MediaWiki-Dev Docker Guide.
Troubleshooting: The #1 issue is a port conflict on 8080. The #2 issue is not having enough RAM allocated to Docker.

Find & Claim a Task on the Good First Bugs list. Comment to claim it.
Create a Branch: git checkout -b T12345-description.
Code & Commit: Write your code. Your commit message MUST start with the bug number: Bug: T12345 | A clear summary of the fix.
Submit for Review: Install git-review (pip install git-review). Then run git review -R.
Engage in Review: This is the most important part. You will get feedback on Gerrit. Be responsive, be humble, and learn. Push new changes to the same branch and run git review -R again.
Get Merged! Your change will be merged by a core developer after it gets a "+2" approval.

Historical Focus: Wikimedia is a GSoC staple. Past projects have focused on improving the mobile apps, building new features for the VisualEditor, fighting vandalism with AI/ML tools (ORES), and improving performance.
What Mentors Look For: They value persistence. They want to see that you have already made a few small, successful contributions before you apply for GSoC. Your Phabricator history is your real resume.

The Golden Link: Curated List of "Good First Bugs" on Phabricator
Pro-Tip: Filter for tasks with the tag Easy. These are specifically set aside for your very first patch.

Process over Code: Your first contribution is a test of your ability to follow their unique process (Phabricator, Gerrit, commit messages). The code is secondary. Get the process right.
Patience is a Virtue: The community is global and volunteer-driven. A review can take a few days. Do not be pushy.
Clarity is King: Your comments and commit messages should be so clear that someone in a different time zone can understand your thinking without asking.

Wikimedia Foundation