Alain Schlesser hosted the first WP-CLI Hack Day last Friday and by all accounts, it was a smashing success.

The main goal was to merge 20 pull requests during the event but due to technical issues with Travis CI, only 12 were merged. Travis CI is open source software used to perform automated testing.

In addition to the 12 pull requests that were merged, 13 more were submitted. The last two hours of the event featured a video call where contributors could talk through issues or receive help on submitting pull requests.

“We peaked at 13 participants to that video chat,” Schlesser said. “It allowed for people to make a more personal connection, which added another dimension to the act of contributing.”

Despite not reaching the goal, Schlesser is pleased with how it turned out.

“The event was also an experiment, to see whether a more direct, interactive form of contribution would attract more contributors,” he said. “I think it did succeed in doing so, and I think it was a positive experience for the participants.”

Feedback from participants is positive and folks enjoyed having Schlesser available to answer questions and walk them through how to set up an environment for testing.

Though we fell a little short of that goal, it was heartening to be a part of the communal experience, learn how to write my first Behat test (something that has been on my to-do list for a long time!), and get immediate feedback on my submitted pull request. And, of course, getting that PR merged was a thrill as well, as I can now say that I’ve contributed back to the project.

Jeremy Ward

You can find links to all of the merged and submitted pull requests on the WP-CLI Hack Day summary page.