Large Open-Source C# (.NET) Project Seeks Contributors
The .NET developer community continues to grow actively, and one of the largest open-source projects on the C# platform — Microsoft PowerToys — has announced a call for new contributors. This project, boasting over 100,000 stars on GitHub, is an excellent opportunity for developers of any level to contribute to the Windows ecosystem and gain invaluable experience working with a real product.
PowerToys is a set of utilities for enhancing productivity in Windows. It includes tools such as FancyZones (window manager), PowerRename (bulk file renaming), Image Resizer, and many others. The project is fully open-source, written in C# using .NET (primarily .NET 6/8) and the Windows App SDK.
Why should you join?
- Work with a real product: You will be making changes to tools used by millions of people worldwide. This is an excellent addition to your resume.
- Learn the modern .NET stack: The project actively uses WinUI 3, Windows App SDK, XAML Islands, and the latest C# features (Records, Pattern Matching, Source Generators).
- Community and mentorship: The core maintainers (including Microsoft employees) actively review code and help newcomers. There is a special "good first issue" label for first PRs.
- Variety of tasks: Not only UI developers are needed, but also specialists in backend, testing, documentation, and design.
What tasks are currently a priority?
The team has highlighted several key areas where help is needed:
- Bug fixing in existing modules: Especially in the Mouse Without Borders (controlling multiple PCs) and Peek (quick file preview) utilities.
- Adding localization: Translating the interface into new languages (including refining the Russian translation).
- Performance optimization: Reducing memory consumption and utility startup time.
- Writing unit tests: Code coverage with tests is one of the most in-demand tasks.
- Documentation: Improving the wiki and README files.
How to get started?
The process of entering the project is as simple as possible:
- Go to the PowerToys GitHub repository.
- Open the Issues section and filter by the "good first issue" label.
- Choose a task that suits your skills and leave a comment stating you want to take it.
- Follow the instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md — it describes the code style requirements, build process, and Pull Request creation.
Important: the project requires installing Visual Studio 2022 with the ".NET desktop development" and "Universal Windows Platform" workloads. All code is checked in CI/CD pipelines via GitHub Actions.
Conclusion
PowerToys is an ideal entry point into the world of open source in C#. You will not only