Commit Overflow 2023

In December of 2022, we ran our first Commit Overflow, where we challenged our community to make things for 10 consecutive days through the new year. Those who committed & pushed to GitHub all 10 days earned a laser cut badge with their name on it. It was a huge success: our community at the time had just crossed 1,000 members, and the flurry of activity in our Discord from Commit Overflow projects poured more energy into the community than anything before it.

We ran Commit Overflow again during 2023’s winter break with a 2,000-member community and a lot more energy to start. This year, we upped the ante: in addition to committing for 10 days, we challenged our members to commit every day through to the end of winter break, with a special secret prize at the end. We also added a 5-day challenge, which earned an exclusive Discord role, for people who wanted to participate but didn’t want to commit for 10 straight days. 30 people participated in the 2023 edition of Commit Overflow.

Like last year, the freedom to explore led some to stick solely to one project, while others bounced around different topics. Some exciting projects included a React app to show a to-do list (JavaScript), a Nintendo DS emulator (C), and a Minecraft mod (Java). Some people chose to work on Advent of Code or learn a new language, like Rust, instead of shipping a project.

Last year, community members shared their project updates in the #⛵️sail channel in our Discord, and we wrote a Discord bot to track progress in a thread. This year, members created & posted their own thread in a new forum channel called #commit-overflow-2023. This turned out to be a major improvement: people used their threads as their own “space” throughout winter break, which led them to share more detailed updates every day and allowed a higher level of engagement from other members. I enjoyed scrolling through each person’s thread and seeing the evolution of projects day by day.

Of the 30 people who participated in Commit Overflow this year, 15 committed for 5 consecutive days, 4 people committed for 10 consecutive days, and 2 ultra-dedicated people committed on all 16 days of Commit Overflow. We’re currently manufacturing & distributing everyone’s prizes!

Commit Overflow was even better in 2023 than in 2022. It was incredible to see our community pushing themselves to finish a feature, fix a gnarly bug, or explore cool new things, and share their work with others. What a great way to kick off 2024!