# How I Made My First Open-Source Contribution To Supabase?

It was the December 29th, and I was on vacation. I hadn't coded for over few days and wanted to do something valuable. I remembered having this desire to contribute to `Supabase` through open-source for few months. Having secured a job in the September, I became quite busy with the new project learning and was not able to give time to other activities. So, when I finally found a little window to fulfill my desire, I took it. Here's how I did my first ever open-source contribution this year.

## Beginning
The first thing I did in order to start contributing was to go to the [`Supabase GitHub Repository`](https://github.com/supabase/supabase) and clone it using GitHub CLI. Afterwards, I started to look around the repo to see how to set it up in local past the cloning step and I found this on their  [`Developers.md`](https://github.com/supabase/supabase/blob/master/DEVELOPERS.md) file. I followed the steps mentioned in this document and my local setup was up and running. Now, it was time to figure out what issues I can tackle!

For my first open-source contribution, I wanted it to be simple but not spammy like changing `README.md` and other similar tasks that just adds headache on the developers. So, I went to the Issues sections, looked at open issues and applied the `good first issue` label to get all the issues which are meaningful yet beginner friendly.
![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1642433249790/PsDh6h4HV.png)

I finally picked the issue I thought I could tackle without any problem. It was a `Chore` issue with the need for starter example of React Native.
![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1642433422602/rz_RQfVWm.png)

I took that issue and started the conversation with @[`Paul`](@kiwicopple) on the same thread to get it assigned to me. Since it was during the holidays, our conversation was a bit lagging but I made sure to start working on it next day.

So, on the next day, I created a new branch and included two examples for React Native projects inside `examples` directory. One, with TypeScript and another in plain JavaScript. This part was easy, as was creating the examples. There were few changes like there is no `localStorage` in React Native so one has to use  [`React-Native-Async-Storage`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@react-native-async-storage/async-storage). I also ran into the problem of `.env` file variables not being accepted by default, and had to install  [`react-native-dotenv`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-native-dotenv).

## Challenges
Once, the whole react-native side was completed, I finally ran the `Metro` app and went to make a tea for myself only to return and see that the Android run had failed. I had worked with Java sometime during my self-learning phase in 2020, and even created  [`YouTube series on my channel IBCoder`](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSJT2JkBBWbHKTiEf8XyPAOEnQq6HSvNI), so, fortunately I knew how to fix this `gradle` issue.

Few things needed to be changed in different files inside `android` folder:

1. Firstly, added `distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-7.3-all.zip` line inside `/android/gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties` file.
2. Then, added `buildToolsVersion = "30.0.2"` line and `classpath("com.android.tools.build:gradle:7.0.4")` line inside `/android/build.gradle` file.
3. And finally, I had to install `30.0.2 SDK tool` related things in `Android Studio` rather than the default settings they show currently in their docs using 29.0.2 or similar.

## The Results
Once these setting changes were in place, things went okay and compilation happened smoothly without any error. I checked few things using manual testing and once I was confident that it is good, I pushed the code to my `GitHub` repo and finally created a pull request which, after few back and forth of review, was merged to the `supabase master branch`.

This entire process took eight days in total and finally, I got the suggestion by @[`Paul`](@kiwicopple) to send an email for `Swag`. I had already initiated the process on that front and given my size and address and waiting for the same. Bonus? The fact that my current company, @[`GeekyAnts`](@geekyants), supports initiatives like these and I had informed them as well.

## In The End
So, to close this article, I will say that I started this year with a great open-source contribution. Doing so gives a little more confidence in the code reading skills and the ability to solve problems. I have decided to keep contributing to Supabase moving forward as I get more time in future.

Thanks for reading.