It’s almost here! The air is getting crisp, and our keyboards are getting ready. Hacktoberfest is back, and this year is special.
CALLING THE ENTIRE SERVICENOW BUILDER COMMUNITY!
This marks the 9th year that the ServiceNow community has participated in DigitalOcean's Hacktoberfest. Almost a decade of open-sourced, collaborative, ServiceNow-specific projects!
Every year, you set new records. Last year in 2024, you blew us away with 1,375 Pull Requests by 453 Participants! You can see the full results from last year's amazing event here. The bar is high, but we know you can raise it.
This year, our theme is intentionality. We're thinking about where you are in your builder journey and challenging you to go one step up. Did you participate last year? Take yourself one level up and challenge yourself to do something a little bit harder. We want your participation to be about growth, not just getting contributions in.
Need some motivation? Watch this 2 minute video from Sr. Developer Advocate, Laszlo Balla, and one of last year's top 3 volunteers:
What’s New in 2025: A Guided Journey
We heard you. In the past, the sheer number of projects could be overwhelming. This year, we're taking a more focused approach with a guided journey split into three clear levels. Find the path that's right for you, or challenge yourself to complete contributions to all three!
Level 1: "Start your open-source, collaborative journey here."
New to open source or Git? This is your starting line. We're bringing back our most popular project, Code Snippets, which allows you to contribute to our open repository without needing to spin up a ServiceNow instance. It’s the perfect way to get used to the idea of contributing to a Git project and make your first mark.
Level 2: "Understand open source in ServiceNow."
Ready for the next step? This level is about taking a Git repository and connecting it to a ServiceNow instance. You'll see how Git/source control works inside ServiceNow and start contributing records accordingly. It's a little more complex than Level 1, but we've created an incredibly guided and straightforward project to help you learn this crucial skill. And this year, this project has a special purpose...
Level 3: "Contribute to our cornerstone project."
For our more advanced builders, this is your challenge. We are building a new utility that the entire ServiceNow community can benefit from. The more people that contribute to this cornerstone project, the more the wider community will benefit. We envision this as an ongoing project that will be constantly enhanced, making everyone's jobs easier. We’ll reveal our action-packed project when Hacktoberfest officially launches.
What is Hacktoberfest? (And a Git Refresher)
Hacktoberfest is an annual, month-long celebration of open-source software run by DigitalOcean in partnership with GitHub and others. We, the ServiceNow community, participate by providing ServiceNow-focused projects for you to contribute to.
Feeling rusty on the terminology? Here's how it connects to our guided journey:
Imagine you're adding to a community cookbook.
- Fork (Making Your Own Copy): You photocopy the main cookbook. This is your personal copy of a project to work on.
- Branch (Starting a New Recipe): You grab a new piece of paper to draft your recipe. This keeps your work separate from the main book while you perfect it.
- Commit (Saving Your Drafts): You write down the ingredients and save that version. A commit is a snapshot of your work. Your first commit might be a simple snippet for our Level 1 project!
- Pull Request (Sharing Your Recipe): Your recipe is ready! You ask the head chefs to review it and add it to the main cookbook. This is a pull request (PR)—the core of Hacktoberfest.
- Push (Adding it to the Main Cookbook): The chefs love it, and your recipe is officially added! For our Level 2 and 3 projects, this is how you'll get your work into a shared ServiceNow application.
Your Rewards for the Journey
We’ve got some fantastic prizes to celebrate your contributions this year!
- From DigitalOcean: Evolve your customizable digital badge from Holopin with every pull/merge request you make.
- From the ServiceNow Community:
- An exclusive Community Badge on your profile for completing Hacktoberfest.
- Codes to the ServiceNow store to redeem awesome ServiceNow Merch.
- Official CreatorCon T-shirts (available on a first-come, first-served basis, so contribute early!).
IMPORTANT: How to Qualify for ServiceNow Prizes
To be eligible for the Community Badge, Merch, and T-shirt, you must meet both of these conditions:
- Have four (4) of your Pull Requests accepted in eligible Hacktoberfest repositories.
- Post a comment on this blog post detailing your contributions and sharing your experience!
How to Get Started
Everything you need to know will be in our main Hacktoberfest repository. This is your central hub for project links, detailed instructions, and leaderboards.
https://github.com/ServiceNowDevProgram/Hacktoberfest
The projects for this year will appear in that repository as we get closer to October 1st.
Each project repository has detailed instructions that you can follow, but here is a crash-course 3-minute video:
Your Guides on the Journey
This event is only possible thanks to a massive effort from our community volunteers. They'll be reviewing your pull requests and helping you along the way. The full Hacktoberfest 2025 Crew is still being finalized and will be announced right here on October 1st!
Need help? The entire crew and fellow participants hang out on the SNDevs workspace chat.
Join us via this link (https://invite.sndevs.com/) and then find us in the #hacktoberfest channel.
Get Ready for October!
The journey begins on October 1st. For now, here's how you can prepare:
- Bookmark this blog post! It will be updated with the latest information.
- Go "Star" the main GitHub repository to get notifications.
- Join the SNDevs Slack and say hello in the #hacktoberfest channel.
HACKTOBERFEST IS BACK BABY WOOOOOOOOO
