Month 9-Week 2: Track final push (part 1) + first OSS PR¶

Week summary¶

Goal: Push the track project toward its final state. Submit one upstream OSS PR to a project in your specialty.
Time: ~9 h over 3 sessions.
Output: Substantial track progress; OSS PR submitted.

Why this week matters¶

A merged OSS PR is a strong public signal. It also forces you to read source code at depth and follow another project's conventions-a skill that compounds. The track project's final push begins now.

Prerequisites¶

M09-W01 complete.
Track repo at v0.2.

Recommended cadence¶

Session A-Tue/Wed evening (~3 h): pick OSS issue + start
Session B-Sat morning (~3.5 h): track build
Session C-Sun afternoon (~2.5 h): finish PR + track build

Session A-Pick OSS contribution + start¶

Goal: Identify a concrete OSS contribution. Start the work.

Part 1-Browse issues (60 min)¶

Find the GitHub repo of a project in your specialty: - Track A: Inspect AI, Braintrust, Promptfoo, Langfuse, RAGAS. - Track B: AutoGen, LangGraph, CrewAI, OpenAI Swarm. - Track C: vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM, llama.cpp.

Filter issues by good first issue, help wanted, or documentation.

Aim for: scope = 4–8 hours total work. If bigger, it'll bog you down. If smaller, it's not enough learning.

Examples: - Doc improvement (clarification, missing example). - A small feature with clear semantics (a CLI flag, a config option). - A bug fix with reproducible test. - A test for an under-covered area.

Part 2-Read the contributing guide (45 min)¶

Most OSS projects have CONTRIBUTING.md. Read it. Pay attention to: - Branch naming conventions. - Commit message format. - PR template. - Test requirements. - How they handle CLAs.

Part 3-Fork + branch + start (75 min)¶

Fork. Clone. Create a branch. Make the first commit toward the issue.

If you can't get the test suite running locally, that's the first problem to solve-and a doc-improvement opportunity.

Output of Session A¶

Issue picked, branch started.
Test suite working locally.

Session B-Track build¶

Goal: Substantive progress on the track project. Aim for one meaningful feature.

Part 1-Pick the next milestone (15 min)¶

From DESIGN.md or BACKLOG.md.

Part 2-Build (180 min)¶

Heads-down. Tests where applicable.

Part 3-Commit + retro (15 min)¶

LEARNING_LOG entry.

Output of Session B¶

1 substantive milestone shipped.

Session C-Finish OSS PR + track build¶

Goal: Submit the OSS PR. Continue track build.

Part 1-Finish OSS work (90 min)¶

Polish the PR: - Tests where applicable. - Doc updates. - Clean commit history (git rebase -i if needed; or just squash before opening).

Open the PR with a clear description:

## What this changes
[1 paragraph]

## Why
[Link issue + 1 paragraph]

## Tests
[Describe coverage]

Don't wait for merge. Submit and continue. Reviews take days/weeks.

Part 2-Track build (60 min)¶

Continue. Push.

Part 3-Retro (15 min)¶

Update LEARNING_LOG: "what I learned reading X's source code."

Output of Session C¶

OSS PR open.
Additional track progress.

End-of-week artifact¶

OSS PR submitted (open or merged)
2 substantive track commits

End-of-week self-assessment¶

I read at least 500 lines of an established OSS project.
I followed someone else's coding conventions.
My track project keeps moving.

Common failure modes for this week¶

Picking an OSS issue too big. 4–8 hour scope max.
Stalling on local test setup. That's the first issue to fix; often the most useful PR.
Ignoring CONTRIBUTING.md. Reviewers will reject for protocol reasons; learn first.

What's next (preview of M09-W03)¶

Track build (part 2) + writeup. Polish toward feature freeze.