Skip to main content

Getting Started as a Contributor

Grainlify connects you with open-source projects that want contributors, and keeps track of what you've contributed so it counts for something — a public track record, a spot on the leaderboard, and rewards for helping grow the community.

Two minutes to your first contribution

Sign in, open Discover, click into any issue, hit Apply. That's the whole loop — everything else on this page is context for once you're in.

Create your account​

There's one way in: Sign in with GitHub.

  1. Go to grainlify.com and click Sign In.
  2. Authorize Grainlify on GitHub. We only ever read your public profile and public activity to match you with projects — we never touch private repositories without you explicitly connecting one yourself.
  3. You're in. Your account is linked to your GitHub identity, so your avatar, username, and public contributions show up automatically.

There's no separate signup form and nothing to fill in up front — your first sign-in is your account.

Eligibility

You'll need a GitHub account and to be 18 or older — this matters mainly because payouts involve real money (USDC), and Grainlify has to be able to verify who it's paying. See Grainlify's Terms & Conditions in-app for the full details.

The basic loop​

Once you're signed in, using Grainlify comes down to four things:

  1. Find a project or issue you want to work on, using Discover, Browse, Ecosystems, or Search.
  2. Apply to an issue and, once a maintainer assigns it to you, do the work as a normal GitHub pull request.
  3. Every issue and pull request you complete adds to your public contribution history, which is what your rank and leaderboard position are built from.
  4. Separately, invite people and follow us on social media to earn points you can redeem for USDC.

Steps 3 and 4 are genuinely separate systems — contributing builds your rank, referrals and social-follow build your redeemable points balance. How Rewards Work lays out exactly how they fit together.

Your profile​

Everything you do is reflected on your profile page — a public page anyone can view, showing your contribution history, the projects you've worked on, and your current rank.

Staying in the loop​

Turn on notifications so you hear about application decisions, merged pull requests, and reward payouts without having to keep checking the dashboard.