I Made My First Code Contribution to Alacritty-Themes

The Problem

Time flies during the pandemic. I realized I’d been using the Alacritty terminal for over a year, and I found it very effective because of its simple YAML configuration.

However, I was always looking for colors in different repositories, copying and pasting them, and sometimes commenting them out in case I wanted to go back to the previous color. In hindsight, this process was disastrous.

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The Solution

I looked for a better solution to manage colors in Alacritty and found alacritty-themes ❤️. This package makes it easy to access more than 100 different colors with the ability to change them in real-time from the terminal, without needing to manually edit the ~/.config/alacritty.yml file.

After using it for a while, I got curious about what language it was written in. I assumed it was a bash script, but to my surprise, it’s written in JavaScript, specifically Node.js.

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The Contribution

When I reviewed the code, I identified opportunities to contribute, so I forked the repository and made a simple change.

There was a file called test.js in the tests folder. According to the standard convention for tests, the structure should be:

src/index.js              test/index.test.js
src/helpers/locations.js  test/helpers/locations.test.js
src/components/Home.js    test/components/Home.test.js

My contribution was to rename the file test.js to index.test.js.

Here’s the link to the Pull Request on GitHub.

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What I Learned

It’s not necessary to make big changes to contribute to a project. Sometimes a simple file rename or a small bug fix is all that’s needed. What matters most is:

1. Look for opportunities — When you use a tool regularly, you’ll notice small things that could be improved
2. Follow conventions — Understanding the project’s conventions (like test file naming) helps you spot inconsistencies
3. Start small — Your first contribution doesn’t need to be complex. A simple change is a great way to get started

This small contribution opened the door to more involvement with the project, as I went on to become a maintainer and help release several versions.

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Best regards, eager to keep contributing, Juan Vásquez.