Encouraging helpful contributions to your project with labels

Apply the good first issue label to issues in your repository to highlight opportunities for people to contribute to your project.

You can apply the good first issue label to issues in your public repository so that people can find them when searching by labels. For more information about searching by labels, see Searching issues and pull requests.

GitHub uses an algorithm to determine the most approachable issues in each repository and surface them in various places on GitHub. Adding the good first issue label can increase the likelihood that your issues are surfaced.

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. Under your repository name, click Issues.

    Screenshot of the main page of a repository. In the horizontal navigation bar, a tab, labeled "Issues," is outlined in dark orange.

  3. Select the checkbox next to the items you want to apply a label to.

    Screenshot of the first two items in a list of issues. To the left of each issue, a checkbox is checked and outlined in dark orange.

  4. Above the list of issues, select the Label dropdown menu.

    Screenshot of the list of issues for a repository. In the header above the list, a dropdown menu, labeled "Label", is outlined in dark orange.

  5. In the "Search filters" field, start typing good first issue. Click the label's name to associate it with the selected items.

Further reading