How to contribute to Kubernetes in 2025

A question I get asked a lot is "How can I start contributing to Kubernetes?". The answer to this question is always "It depends". The Kubernetes project is very vast and contributing can mean a lot of different things to different people. Knowing what you want to get out of your contributions can go a long way when asking this question.

This post is a compilation of all the different answers I've given to people who have asked me this question over the years.

TL;DR

• Watch the new contributor orientation
• Join SIG meetings
• Join the mailing list
• Lookout for opportunities with low barrier to entry like shadow programs and mentorship cohorts
• Important repositories:
  • kubernetes/kubernetes: All of the Kubernetes code
  • kubernetes/community: Useful links and guides and information about all the SIGs
  • kubernetes/website: The source code for kubernetes.io, hosting all our documentation
  • kubernetes/enhancements: All the design proposals for features, aka Kubernetes Enhancements Proposals (KEPs)
• k8s.dev, our contributor website with contributor docs and guides
• SIGs with low barrier to entry:
  • SIG ContribEx: You can handle our social media, help write blogs for the contributor website
  • SIG Docs: Help localize the Kubernetes docs to different languages, write and review blog posts
  • SIG Release: Shadow in the release team herding the contributors to make sure Kubernetes is shipped on time
• Kubernetes developer documentation to start contributing code

Want to contribute but don't know where to start?

Start by watching this New Contributor Orientation call.

This is a call that happens on the third Tuesday of every month. This presentation walks you through the entire structure of the Kubernetes community and teaches you how you can get started.

Structure of the Kubernetes community

The Kubernetes project is divided into different Special Interest Groups or SIGs. Each SIG has its own chairpersons and tech leads who are responsible for running the SIG. A SIG would be responsible for a particular part of the project. For example, SIG Node is responsible for everything happening in a Kubernetes node, such as the kubelet, container runtimes etc.

We can group SIGs in three ways:

• Project SIGs: Project wide work involving the entirety of the Kubernetes community, like contributor experience, documentation, release etc. This includes the non-technical, human side of the project too.
• Horizontal SIGs: Broad technical focus (For example SIG API Machinery, dealing with the infrastructure enabling building APIs across all the different components, not limited to the kube-apiserver)
• Vertical SIGs: Specific technical focus (For example SIG Etcd, dealing specifically with improving and maintaining etcd)

The following diagram shows all the different SIGs:

Source: kubernetes/community repo

You can find the details of the different SIGs such as the chairs and tech leads, the subprojects and the meetings of all the SIGs here in the community repo.

Open meetings and the community calendar

One of my favourite things about the Kubernetes community is that all the meetings and decision making are done in public (except for sensitive things dealing with code of conduct, elections etc).

All the SIG meetings are public meetings hosted in Zoom and anyone can join them. One of my favourite resources to share with folks is our community calendar, k8s.dev/calendar. You can find invites to all the meetings of all the SIGs here. All these meetings are recorded and posted to the Kubernetes YouTube channel as well. There are APAC versions of the calls for contributors from this side of the world.

Shadow programs

The Kubernetes project is in constant need of new contributors like you! In order to facilitate onboarding new contributors, we have several shadow programs. These programs are intended to find and train new contributors so there usually aren't many prerequisites for joining. Here are some of the popular ones:

• SIG Docs PR Wrangler Shadow Program: The PR wrangler shadow helps the PR wrangler of that week to review docs PRs to kubernetes/website. Reach out to a PR wrangler of a week in the #sig-docs channel in Slack asking if you can shadow them. This is one of the easiest way to get started contributing. I started my contribution journey as a PR wrangler shadow too :)
• Release Team Shadow Program: The release team is responsible for herding Kubernetes contributors and making sure that Kubernetes is released on time. We have three releases every year so you'll get three chances to apply to become a shadow in any of the subteams (mentioned in the linked page)
• Production Readiness Reviewer Shadow Program: The PRR process ensures that features that go into each release are production ready. This is done with a PRR questionnaire which you would answer. These answers would be reviewed by production readiness approvers. You can shadow these PRR approvers. This is an advanced role and would require you to be familiar with the Kubernetes codebase and the best practices we follow.

Further reading

• Getting Started With Kubernetes On A High Level: A cool gist from Madhav with links to several talks to learn containerization, Kubernetes design principles, Kubernetes API internals etc
• "I want to contribute to Kubernetes, how do i get started?" A Twitter thread from dims with a lot of useful links
• Kuberentes developer documentation

If you still have any specific questions or if you need help unblocking yourself in any way, feel free to reach out to me on the Kubernetes Slack!