About the Arena
How It Works
Every Friday at 17:00 UTC, a GitHub Action automatically rebuilds a fresh pool of 250 active open-source repositories and pulls new issues from them. Issues are labeled as Good First Issues, Bugs, or Hard Issues. The number of issues pulled per category grows with the Arena Level, so collective progress unlocks more weekly issues for everyone.
Every hour, another action checks whether any listed issues have been closed by a pull request. If your PR closes an Arena issue, you automatically earn points — which feed both your personal rank and the shared Arena Level.
No registration required. Contributions are detected via GitHub's public metadata.
Your first PR, in 4 steps
- Fork the repo on GitHub and clone your fork locally. Create a branch off
main. - Implement your fix. Read the issue thread first — many maintainers share hints or constraints in the comments.
- Open a pull request back to the original repo. Include
Closes #N(orFixes #N/Resolves #N) in the description so the issue auto-closes when the PR merges. The arena detects the PR within ~1 hour and opens a welcome Discussion thread — future status updates (merges, points, rank-ups) are posted there as comments. - Wait for review. When your first PR merges, the arena credits points automatically and unlocks your Arena Card — a badge you can embed in your GitHub profile README.
Rules
- • You have 7 days from when an issue is listed to open a PR
- • Issues with a PR are tracked for up to 28 weeks to allow maintainer review time
- • Issues with no PR after 7 days are dropped from tracking
- • Your PR must reference the issue via a closing keyword (
fixes #N,closes #N,resolves #N) or be linked through GitHub's sidebar - • If multiple PRs reference the same issue, only the one that closes it earns points
- • All contributors to Arena-listed issues are treated as participants
I found this issue through Weekly Issue Arena, a gamified hub that publishes open-source issues weekly. Completely optional — your contribution speaks for itself either way. Point System
Player Ranks
Arena Level
Every point earned by every contributor adds to a shared pool. When the pool crosses a threshold, the arena levels up and the weekly issue quota grows by +1 issue per category. The arena starts at Level 0 with up to 44 issues per week and reaches Level 10 at up to 74 issues per week. Actual counts may be lower if not enough matching issues are found across the tracked repos.
The current state is shown live on the home page and as a static SVG bar in the README. Level-ups are announced in the Arena Milestones discussion.
| Level | Threshold | GFI | Bug | Hard | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 pts | 20 | 14 | 10 | 44 |
| 1 | 25 pts | 21 | 15 | 11 | 47 |
| 2 | 75 pts | 22 | 16 | 12 | 50 |
| 3 | 150 pts | 23 | 17 | 13 | 53 |
| 4 | 275 pts | 24 | 18 | 14 | 56 |
| 5 | 450 pts | 25 | 19 | 15 | 59 |
| 6 | 700 pts | 26 | 20 | 16 | 62 |
| 7 | 1050 pts | 27 | 21 | 17 | 65 |
| 8 | 1500 pts | 28 | 22 | 18 | 68 |
| 9 | 2100 pts | 29 | 23 | 19 | 71 |
| 10 | 3000 pts | 30 | 24 | 20 | 74 |
FAQ
My PR was merged but I didn't get points.
Make sure your PR references the issue — either via a closing keyword
(fixes #N, closes #N,
resolves #N) in the PR body, or by linking the issue
through GitHub's sidebar. If you did link it, open a thread in
Discussions.
Can I request a specific repo to be added?
The pool is rebuilt automatically each week from the GitHub Search API, so any actively
maintained repo with good first issue or
help wanted labels is likely to appear on its own.
For a guaranteed spot, edit
config/anchor_repos.yml
and open a PR.
What is the Arena Level and how does it grow?
Every point earned by every contributor adds to a shared pool. When the pool crosses a threshold, the arena levels up and the weekly issue quota grows by one issue per category — so each level unlocks more opportunities for everyone. See the Arena Level section above for the full level table.
What if I contributed without knowing about the Arena?
You're still counted. All contributors to Arena-listed issues are treated equally.
How is this automated?
Via GitHub Actions + GitHub REST API. See .github/workflows/ for the full scripts.
Tracked Repos
Each week the Arena rebuilds a pool of 250 repositories: 50 hand-curated anchors covering ML, AI, satellite, data science and dev tools, plus ~200 freshly discovered repos that match active issue signals.