Most useful right now
1. Run something and report what breaks. A reproducible failure against the public testnet — a pallet call that reverts unexpectedly, a document whose steps do not work, a hostname that does not resolve — is the ecosystem's highest-value contribution in 2026. File it as an issue with the exact command, the runtime version and the response. The correction goes in the document with a dated note.
2. Fix documentation. 168 pages, 19 reachable; a cookbook with undeclared variables; a Dart SDK README that is the framework's template. Pull requests against the docs are reviewed with the same standard as code: does the step work when someone else runs it?
3. Exercise a pallet nobody has. Most of the 140 pallets have never carried a real transaction on the public testnet. The first script that does so for any of them is a first, and this blog records them.
4. Propose a grants project. Copy the template, open a PR to docs/grants/proposals/, open an issue titled [GRANT] …. The programme has not opened; proposals prepared now are reviewed when it does.
5. Run a full node. No key ceremony, no bond. A node in a different provider or country is the first step toward the second geography the decentralization gate requires — and if you later meet the six independence conditions, a validator.
How contributions are received
- Acknowledgement within 48 working hours for grants issues (per the programme); best effort otherwise.
- A correction is recorded in the document it corrects, with the date and what was wrong.
- No token, no bounty in real money.
pallet-bug-bountyexists in the runtime; it is funded with nothing until there is a treasury with value.
What you will not find
A Discord that answers at 2 a.m. (the hackathon's 48-hour channel is the exception), a forum (older docs named hosts that never existed), a conference, a meetup schedule. The ecosystem is a small team in one city with a public repository.
Gather to build
The page this replaces announced an events programme. Building here happens in issues and pull requests, and the gathering is the correction block at the top of a document that says who found what.
Based on TESTNET_GRANTS_PROGRAM.md §4 and the ecosystem's documentation conventions.