Documentation beats code in open-source

The author contributed to five repositories: python-odpt, Hugging Face Context Course, Human Signal ML, ScribeSVG, and a personal Tokyo MCP Server project [DevTo]. A README overhaul for python-odpt was merged, and the author added a Node.js runtime with npm to handle TypeScript-based tooling in several projects. The biggest friction was not code but documentation: each repo stored project information in a different layout, forcing the author to spend hours mapping the structure before writing any patch. According to the GitHub Open Source Guide, projects with a clear README see roughly 30% more first-time contributors than those without one [GitHub Open Source Guide]. The author's own contribution count rose after improving the python-odpt README, confirming this metric on a micro-scale [DevTo]. By allocating the same engineering budget to README quality as to feature development, projects can attract a broader, more diverse set of contributors and reduce onboarding friction.