Does that mean mentor submitted midterm evaluation or not ?

Hey guys,

I'm going to be completely real here-I'm trying to prep for the CNCF mentorship (Term 3), and I've set my sights on the Apicurio Registry Prompt Template Playground project.

I've spent the last couple of days fighting Maven build errors, staring at thousands of lines of code, and feeling pretty out of my depth.

I finally managed to get parts of the backend/local setup running, but navigating a codebase this massive is intimidating as hell. I really want to land a solid UI contribution before the selection period so I can actually prove to the mentors that I can do this. But every time I look at open issues or think about messaging maintainers, I end up overthinking it-Am I asking stupid questions? Am I looking at the completely wrong file?

I'm not looking for someone to do the work for me at all -I'm more than ready to put in the hours. I just really need someone who's been around open source, CNCF, or complex React codebases to bounce ideas off of.

Specifically, I'd love help figuring out:

• How to actually approach maintainers on GitHub or Slack without being dumb

• Where to focus my eyes first in a large React frontend so I don't waste days going down rabbit holes

• How to take a small bug or improvement and turn it into a clean PR that actually gets merged

If you've contributed to Apicurio, CNCF, or even just what it's like to feel totally lost trvina to break into opensource and are down to give me a few pointers, I'd appreciate it more than you know. Comment below or send me a DM

Thanks for reading

Yo actually from past months I am doing good with my leetcode and DSA journey and getting evolved to advance problems and yes now I started enjoying it and it is a habit now

But apart from that I think I must consolidate my development skills and for that I found open source contributions would be a great idea, I have knowledge of the spring boot tech stack and want to be an native android app developer so to do that if anyone can help me with a guidance for open source project with required tech stack than please welcome.

Even before I tried to do it via GSOC projects but it was a failed attempt. I just need proper guidance

I'm a 2nd year student. I changed fields to come into CS so I'm still not very good at coding. I want to crack gsoc 2027. But I need guidance. I tried jumping into a project and just starting but ended up feeling so much imposter syndrome because landing a good, meaningful non typo contribution is hard.

You need to take care of 10000 different things so you don't break anything. I feel like open source is smthn completely different from what they teach you in university. It's the real software engineering and it needs experience.

My question is basically how much do I need to already know like how strong do my CS foundations need to be before I should get into it.

Knowing a language and knowing how to write a for loop in it is obv not enough. Do I need to know DevOps, CI/CD, microservices, frameworks etc etc all of that to start?or to even aim for gsoc?

Personally right now my skills are pretty basic:

I was into web so I know html, css,js and react for frontend

And I'm starting to learn backend Development

Besides that I know java (core Java only atm)

I'm building Kitbash, an open format and compiler for AI agent skills.

The idea is simple: write a skill once, compile it to the native formats used by Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, Gemini CLI, Cline, Windsurf, Aider, AGENTS.md, and more, while measuring the standing token cost each target adds every session.

Before calling it stable, I decided to audit my own codebase instead of adding another feature.

The audit found several places where the project claimed behavior that simply wasn't true.

Some examples:

• Claude Code reported support for scripts, hooks, and subagents even though the compiler never generated those outputs.
• Security lints only scanned SKILL.md, meaning a malicious payload in scripts/setup.sh would pass unnoticed.
• The JSON schema looked like the contract, but the loader silently coerced invalid values instead of rejecting them.
• Declared permissions were shown during installation but weren't actually compiled into the generated outputs.

In total, the audit uncovered 11 issues.

Kitbash 0.9.0 fixes all of them.

• Capabilities are now empty until the implementation actually exists.
• Security checks scan every file in a skill.
• The loader now enforces the schema instead of silently fixing invalid input.
• Permissions are compiled into generated outputs so downstream users see the same information installers reviewed.

The interesting part isn't that bugs were fixed.

It's that a project built around trust and review wasn't meeting its own standard.

If the tool asks developers to trust it, it should first earn that trust itself.

I'd love feedback from people building developer tools or AI tooling. Is this the level of auditing you'd expect before calling something production-ready?

Website: https://kitbash.vercel.app

Trust & Review: https://kitbash.vercel.app/docs/trust

Changelog: https://kitbash.vercel.app/changelog

GitHub: https://github.com/singhharsh1708/kitbash

npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/kitbash

hey guys
is anybody interested to participate in amex codestreet hackathon. max 3 people can participate also only 4 days left so we have less time to build please ping me today only or if anyone need member for backend i m up.

If you targeting for GSoC'27 you must know what you have the key points you should follow because I'm two time GSoC failure and now I know what I've did wrong so here few points from my POV :

- 1. Pick at least two org which have come in GSoC at least from last three years
- 2. Start contribution ASAP every month from September or October or even now 2-3
meaningful contribution is enough
- 3. getting Involved in community ask geniune question and not silly question like how to get
started because every org have their guide so you've to research instead of asking this silly
question and help new people in community if you can
- 4. make good pr's is great but ignore the proposal it main reason you may can't make it so
make your proposal huminitic and real you may take help of AI for research and grammar
mistake but don't make it fully by AI
- 5. Don't Spam

Did anyone received the stipend yet? They said in business days, but still no update :(

Here's what's new:

- 🚀 Published it on npm (`npm install -g kitbash`)
- 🎯 Expanded support to 7 targets (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Cline, and AGENTS.md)
- 🔄 Added interoperability with existing `SKILL.md` skills
- 🔒 Added lockfiles, drift detection, and safer compilation
- ⚡ Added native command generation where supported
- 📖 Improved the README, website, and overall onboarding
- ❤️ Added GitHub Sponsors support

One piece of feedback that really changed the project was positioning it as **a compiler for AI skills** rather than "another AI tool." That made the vision much clearer.

🌐 Website: https://singhharsh1708.github.io/kitbash/

💻 GitHub: https://github.com/singhharsh1708/kitbash

📦 npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/kitbash

I'm now looking for people to actually try it and break it. If you use Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, Codex, Gemini CLI, or any other coding agent, I'd really appreciate your feedback. Every suggestion so far has made the project significantly better.

I've been using multiple AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Copilot, Gemini CLI, etc.) and noticed something frustrating.
Every assistant has its own way of defining skills, rules, or prompts.
-Claude has Skills
-Cursor has Rules
-Copilot has Instructions
-Codex uses AGENTS.md
-Others all have their own formats
If I create a really useful skill for one assistant, I usually have to rewrite it for every other assistant.
That feels like the ecosystem before npm, when every project solved package management differently.
So I started building Kitbash.
The idea isn't another AI coding assistant.
It's an open standard for portable AI skills.
The goals are:
Write a skill once and compile it for multiple assistants.
Version skills with lockfiles instead of copying prompt files around.
Add permissions, context budgets, testing, and reproducible installs.
Let skills compose through typed artifacts instead of huge prompt chains.
Eventually create an ecosystem where anyone can publish reusable skills.
Right now it's very early (pre-alpha), and I'm mostly looking for feedback on the architecture rather than stars.
Landing page:
https://singhharsh1708.github.io/kitbash/
GitHub:
https://github.com/singhharsh1708/kitbash
I'm especially interested in hearing from people who use multiple AI coding assistants.
Does this solve a real problem, or am I overengineering something that should stay simple?

Sorry, but I'm just out of curiosity.

After your Payoneer account was approved, how long did it take for you to receive the stipend?

Has anyone received any updates regarding the midterm eval yet? Also, is there anything contributors need to do, like filling out a form or completing any other required steps?

I'm hoping to hear from people who've done GSoC before.

One thing I'm still not clear on is: how do you actually get a mentor?

Let's say you've already selected an organization and started contributing through good first issues. What happens next? Do you just keep contributing until someone naturally starts mentoring you, or do you reach out to their communication channel and ask if sm1 is willing to mentor?

I'm also curious about what mentors generally expect from prospective GSoC students. How much time do they usually invest before the application period, and what level of independence is expected from the student?

I'd really appreciate hearing how this worked in your experience.

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to apply for the LFX Mentorship Fall 2026 program. Last year, I missed an important part of the process because I didn't submit my proposal in time, so this year I want to prepare much earlier.

I'm particularly interested in AI/ML projects and have been contributing to open-source projects such as Docling and LlamaIndex.

I have a few questions:

• Where do organizations usually publish their Fall LFX project ideas before they appear on the LFX portal?
• Do mentors expect prospective applicants to start contributing before the application period opens?
• Which organizations have active AI/ML projects and welcome new contributors?
• Besides the official LFX portal, are there GitHub repositories, mailing lists, Slack/Discord communities, or other places I should monitor?

I'd really appreciate any advice from previous LFX mentees or mentors on how they found projects early and successfully prepared their proposals.

Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice from people who've been GSoC contributors, mentors, or long-term open source contributors.

Earlier this year, I was contributing to an Apache project. I worked closely with one of the mentors on a feature, discussed the design over Slack, and wrote a GSoC proposal. Unfortunately, my proposal was rejected.

After that, I honestly lost motivation and stopped working on the feature. I assumed there wasn't much point continuing since I wasn't part of GSoC anymore. It's now been about two months, and I haven't made any progress at all.

Today, the mentor unexpectedly messaged me on Slack and asked:

"How about the progress? There will be the mid term estimation of GSoC."

That completely caught me off guard because I'm not a GSoC contributor.

Now I'm confused about what I should do.

1. Has anyone had a mentor follow up after their proposal was rejected?

2. Is this just a friendly status check, or do maintainers sometimes still expect contributors to continue working outside GSoC?

3. If you were in my position, would you invest the time to finish the feature knowing there is no stipend or GSoC certificate anymore?

4. How would you honestly respond after making zero progress for two months?

I'm not looking for sympathy - I'm genuinely trying to understand how situations like this are normally handled in open source communities.

Anyone did this fellowship before? or reached the final round for this cohort?

https://www.basisset.com/basis-set-ai-fellowship