# 🙌 The OpenHands Community

The OpenHands community is built around the belief that (1) AI and AI agents are going to fundamentally change the way
we build software, and (2) if this is true, we should do everything we can to make sure that the benefits provided by
such powerful technology are accessible to everyone.

If this resonates with you, we'd love to have you join us in our quest!

## 🤝 How to Join

Check out our [How to Join the Community section.](https://github.com/OpenHands/OpenHands?tab=readme-ov-file#-how-to-join-the-community)

## 💪 Becoming a Contributor

We welcome contributions from everyone! Whether you're a developer, a researcher, or simply enthusiastic about advancing
the field of software engineering with AI, there are many ways to get involved:

- **Code Contributions:** Help us develop new core functionality, improve our agents, improve the frontend and other
interfaces, or anything else that would help make OpenHands better.
- **Research and Evaluation:** Contribute to our understanding of LLMs in software engineering, participate in
evaluating the models, or suggest improvements.
- **Feedback and Testing:** Use the OpenHands toolset, report bugs, suggest features, or provide feedback on usability.

For details, please check [CONTRIBUTING.md](./CONTRIBUTING.md).

## Code of Conduct

We have a [Code of Conduct](./CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) that we expect all contributors to adhere to.
Long story short, we are aiming for an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.
All contributors are expected to contribute to building this sort of community.

## 🛠️ Becoming a Maintainer

For contributors who have made significant and sustained contributions to the project, there is a possibility of joining
the maintainer team. The process for this is as follows:

1. Any contributor who has made sustained and high-quality contributions to the codebase can be nominated by any
maintainer. If you feel that you may qualify you can reach out to any of the maintainers that have reviewed your PRs and ask if you can be nominated.
2. Once a maintainer nominates a new maintainer, there will be a discussion period among the maintainers for at least 3 days.
3. If no concerns are raised the nomination will be accepted by acclamation, and if concerns are raised there will be a discussion and possible vote.

Note that just making many PRs does not immediately imply that you will become a maintainer. We will be looking
at sustained high-quality contributions over a period of time, as well as good teamwork and adherence to our [Code of Conduct](./CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md).
