Projects to start with

115 active open source projects with merged pull requests in the last 30 days and no ban on AI-assisted work in their contributing rules. Checked on 27 October 2026.

Not a developer? Your AI explains each one in plain words, in your language, before it starts, see the guide. None of them have joined idleoss, and listing is not an endorsement. Each project's own rules apply, so read them first.

Developer tools

• sharkdp/bat

  A cat clone with syntax highlighting and Git integration.

  Rust · 61k stars · last merge 2026-10-20

• prettier/prettier

  Opinionated code formatter for JavaScript, CSS, Markdown, and more.

  JavaScript · 52.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-24

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• helix-editor/helix

  Modal terminal text editor with built-in language server support.

  Rust · 46.7k stars · last merge 2026-09-29

• sharkdp/fd

  Fast, user-friendly alternative to find for locating files by name.

  Rust · 44.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-24

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• psf/black

  Opinionated Python code formatter with minimal configuration.

  Python · 42.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• aristocratos/btop

  Resource monitor showing CPU, memory, disks, and network in the terminal.

  C++ · 35.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-25

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• python-poetry/poetry

  Python dependency management and packaging tool with lockfiles.

  Python · 34.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-25

• swc-project/swc

  Rust-based JavaScript and TypeScript compiler and transformer.

  Rust · 34.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• dandavison/delta

  Syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, and grep output.

  Rust · 32.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-04

• sharkdp/hyperfine

  Command-line benchmarking tool that times and compares shell commands with statistics.

  Rust · 29.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-12

• Wilfred/difftastic

  Structural diff tool that understands syntax across many languages.

  Rust · 26.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-15

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• uutils/coreutils

  Rust reimplementation of GNU coreutils commands for Unix-like systems.

  Rust · 24.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• semantic-release/semantic-release

  Automated package versioning and release publishing from commit messages.

  JavaScript · 24.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-24

• oxc-project/oxc

  Rust toolchain for JavaScript and TypeScript: parser, linter, transformer.

  Rust · 23.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• extrawurst/gitui

  Fast terminal UI for working with Git repositories.

  Rust · 22.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-06

• conventional-changelog/commitlint

  Lints commit messages against conventional commit rules.

  TypeScript · 18.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• mikefarah/yq

  Command-line YAML, JSON, and XML processor using jq-like syntax.

  Go · 16.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• goreleaser/goreleaser

  Builds and publishes Go project releases across platforms and package managers.

  Go · 16.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• pytest-dev/pytest

  Python testing framework with simple asserts and rich plugin support.

  Python · 14.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• ninja-build/ninja

  Small build system focused on speed for incremental builds.

  C++ · 13.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-18

• rubocop/rubocop

  Ruby static code analyzer and formatter driven by configurable cops.

  Ruby · 12.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• hadolint/hadolint

  Dockerfile linter that checks for best-practice and shellcheck issues.

  Haskell · 12.5k stars · last merge 2026-10-19

• orhun/git-cliff

  Generates changelogs from Git history using conventional commit parsing.

  Rust · 12.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-24

• anchore/syft

  Generates software bills of materials from container images and filesystems.

  Go · 9.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• pdm-project/pdm

  Modern Python package and dependency manager with PEP standards support.

  Python · 8.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• pypa/hatch

  Python project manager for environments, builds, and publishing.

  Python · 7.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• dundee/gdu

  Fast disk usage analyzer for the terminal with an interactive view.

  Go · 6.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-25

• nextest-rs/nextest

  Next-generation Rust test runner with faster parallel execution.

  Rust · 3.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work

Web and UI

• react/react

  Core JavaScript library for building user interfaces with components.

  JavaScript · 251.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• ant-design/ant-design

  Enterprise React UI component library implementing the Ant Design visual language.

  TypeScript · 99.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• expressjs/express

  Minimal, unopinionated Node.js web framework for building HTTP servers.

  JavaScript · 69.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• webpack/webpack

  Module bundler that packs JavaScript and assets into optimized bundles.

  JavaScript · 66k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• ionic-team/ionic-framework

  Cross-platform UI toolkit for building iOS, Android and web apps.

  TypeScript · 52.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• Leaflet/Leaflet

  Lightweight JavaScript library for interactive mobile-friendly maps.

  JavaScript · 45.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• docsifyjs/docsify

  Lightweight documentation site generator that renders Markdown in the browser.

  JavaScript · 31.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• emberjs/ember.js

  Convention-driven JavaScript framework for large, long-lived web applications.

  TypeScript · 22.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• QwikDev/qwik

  Resumable web framework aimed at instant-loading apps.

  TypeScript · 22.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• tusen-ai/naive-ui

  Vue 3 component library with theme customization and TypeScript support.

  TypeScript · 18.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• vuejs/vitepress

  Static site generator built on Vite and Vue for documentation.

  TypeScript · 18.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• TanStack/router

  Type-safe client-first router and full-stack framework for the web.

  TypeScript · 15.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-24

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• rolldown/rolldown

  Rust JavaScript bundler with a Rollup-compatible API.

  Rust · 14k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• web-infra-dev/rspack

  Rust-based web bundler with a webpack-compatible API.

  Rust · 13k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• unovue/shadcn-vue

  Vue port of shadcn/ui components you copy into your project.

  TypeScript · 10.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-15

• vanilla-extract-css/vanilla-extract

  Zero-runtime stylesheets written in TypeScript.

  TypeScript · 10.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-08

• NG-ZORRO/ng-zorro-antd

  Angular UI component library based on the Ant Design system.

  TypeScript · 9.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-21

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• awslabs/llrt

  Experimental low-latency JavaScript runtime for serverless workloads.

  Rust · 8.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• grommet/grommet

  Accessible React component library with theming and responsive layouts.

  JavaScript · 8.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• parcel-bundler/lightningcss

  Fast Rust-based CSS parser, transformer and minifier.

  Rust · 7.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-25

• boa-dev/boa

  Embeddable JavaScript engine written in Rust.

  Rust · 7.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-25

• unovue/reka-ui

  Unstyled accessible Vue component primitives, successor to Radix Vue.

  Vue · 6.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• cssnano/cssnano

  Modular CSS minifier built on the PostCSS plugin ecosystem.

  CSS · 5k stars · last merge 2026-10-23

  Welcomes AI-assisted work

Python, data and AI

• microsoft/markitdown

  Converts documents such as PDF, Word and Excel to Markdown.

  Python · 192.5k stars · last merge 2026-10-22

• langchain-ai/langchain

  Framework for building LLM applications with chains, agents and integrations.

  Python · 148.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• unslothai/unsloth

  Faster fine-tuning and training for open LLMs with lower memory use.

  Python · 78.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• hiyouga/LlamaFactory

  Unified toolkit for fine-tuning and training many open LLMs.

  Python · 75.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-21

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• docling-project/docling

  Parses PDFs and office documents into structured data for AI pipelines.

  Python · 69.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• scikit-learn/scikit-learn

  Classic machine learning toolkit for Python with consistent estimator APIs.

  Python · 68k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• crewAIInc/crewAI

  Framework for orchestrating role-playing AI agents and multi-step workflows.

  Python · 60.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• huggingface/diffusers

  Library of diffusion model pipelines, schedulers and training tools.

  Python · 34.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• huggingface/smolagents

  Small library for building agents that write and run Python code.

  Python · 30.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-06

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• chroma-core/chroma

  Open-source embedding database for building retrieval apps with LLMs.

  Rust · 29.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-22

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• dmlc/xgboost

  Gradient boosting library for fast tree-based models on large tabular data.

  C++ · 28.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• mlflow/mlflow

  Platform for tracking, packaging and deploying machine learning experiments.

  Python · 28.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• shap/shap

  Explains model predictions with Shapley-value based feature attributions.

  Jupyter Notebook · 25.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-21

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• pyg-team/pytorch_geometric

  Library for graph neural networks built on PyTorch.

  Python · 24.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-21

• huggingface/datasets

  Library to load, share and process datasets for ML workflows.

  Python · 22.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-23

• confident-ai/deepeval

  Framework for unit-testing and evaluating LLM application outputs.

  Python · 19.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-23

• plotly/plotly.py

  Interactive plotting library for Python charts and dashboards.

  Python · 18.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-23

• ipython/ipython

  Interactive Python shell and kernel used across scientific computing.

  Python · 16.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-23

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• Unstructured-IO/unstructured

  Pre-processing library that turns raw documents into clean text for LLMs.

  HTML · 15.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• nltk/nltk

  Natural language toolkit with corpora, tokenizers and teaching material.

  Python · 14.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• statsmodels/statsmodels

  Statistical models, tests and data exploration for Python users.

  Python · 11.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• kornia/kornia

  Differentiable computer vision library built on PyTorch.

  Python · 11.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• sktime/sktime

  Unified Python toolbox for machine learning on time series.

  Python · 10.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• scverse/scanpy

  Scalable toolkit for analysing single-cell gene expression data.

  Python · 2.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-23

Systems and infrastructure

• ollama/ollama

  Runs and serves open large language models locally from the command line.

  Go · 185k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• rustdesk/rustdesk

  Open source remote desktop software written in Rust.

  Rust · 127.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• tauri-apps/tauri

  Framework for building small desktop and mobile apps with web frontends.

  Rust · 112.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• OpenHands/OpenHands

  Frontend repository for the OpenHands AI agent platform.

  TypeScript · 92k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• prometheus/prometheus

  Monitoring system and time series database, written in Go.

  Go · 66.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• traefik/traefik

  Reverse proxy and load balancer that discovers routes from orchestrators.

  Go · 65.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• rclone/rclone

  Command-line tool to sync and manage files across cloud storage.

  Go · 60.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• etcd-io/etcd

  Distributed key-value store used for cluster coordination and config.

  Go · 52.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• mudler/LocalAI

  Self-hosted, OpenAI-compatible API server for running local AI models.

  Go · 50k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• pingcap/tidb

  Distributed SQL database compatible with MySQL, written in Go.

  Go · 40.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• lapce/lapce

  Code editor written in Rust with a native UI.

  Rust · 39k stars · last merge 2026-09-30

• restic/restic

  Fast, encrypted, deduplicating backup program written in Go.

  Go · 36.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-18

• kovidgoyal/kitty

  GPU-accelerated terminal emulator, mostly written in C and Python.

  Python · 35.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• qdrant/qdrant

  Vector similarity search engine and database written in Rust.

  Rust · 35.3k stars · last merge 2026-10-23

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• tokio-rs/tokio

  Asynchronous runtime and networking toolkit for writing Rust programs.

  Rust · 33.5k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• iced-rs/iced

  Cross-platform GUI library for Rust with a reactive model.

  Rust · 31.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-16

• emilk/egui

  Immediate-mode GUI library for Rust, including web builds.

  Rust · 31.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• valkey-io/valkey

  In-memory key-value database forked from Redis, under an open license.

  C · 27.5k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• cilium/cilium

  eBPF-based networking, observability and security for Kubernetes clusters.

  Go · 25.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• ratatui/ratatui

  Rust library for building terminal user interfaces.

  Rust · 23.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• huggingface/candle

  Minimalist machine learning framework for Rust, with GPU support.

  Rust · 21.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-14

• tikv/tikv

  Distributed transactional key-value store written in Rust.

  Rust · 16.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• pion/webrtc

  Pure Go implementation of the WebRTC API.

  Go · 16.9k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• quic-go/quic-go

  QUIC and HTTP/3 implementation in pure Go.

  Go · 11.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• lancedb/lancedb

  Multimodal vector database and retrieval library built on Lance format.

  Rust · 11.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• risingwavelabs/risingwave

  Streaming database for real-time analytics and event processing, in Rust.

  Rust · 9.4k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work

Self-hosted apps and docs

• supabase/supabase

  Open-source Postgres development platform with auth, storage and APIs.

  TypeScript · 114.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• hoppscotch/hoppscotch

  Open-source API development tool for testing REST, GraphQL and WebSocket endpoints.

  TypeScript · 80.7k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• appwrite/appwrite

  Backend platform for auth, databases, storage and functions, self-hostable.

  TypeScript · 57.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• siyuan-note/siyuan

  Local-first note-taking app with block editing and self-hosted sync.

  TypeScript · 47k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• appsmithorg/appsmith

  Open-source low-code builder for internal tools and dashboards.

  TypeScript · 41.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• glanceapp/glance

  Self-hosted dashboard that aggregates feeds, weather and status in one page.

  Go · 37.8k stars · last merge 2026-10-20

• NginxProxyManager/nginx-proxy-manager

  Web UI to manage Nginx reverse proxies and free SSL certificates.

  TypeScript · 34.5k stars · last merge 2026-10-13

• dokku/dokku

  Small self-hosted Platform as a Service that runs on one server.

  Go · 32.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-27

• henrygd/beszel

  Lightweight server monitoring hub with alerts and Docker stats.

  Go · 26.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-22

• m1k1o/neko

  Self-hosted virtual browser shared over WebRTC in your own browser.

  Go · 22.6k stars · last merge 2026-10-18

• docmost/docmost

  Self-hosted wiki and documentation tool for team knowledge bases.

  TypeScript · 22.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-25

• linkwarden/linkwarden

  Self-hosted bookmark manager that archives and preserves saved pages.

  TypeScript · 20.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work
• C4illin/ConvertX

  Self-hosted file converter running many conversion tools in the browser.

  TypeScript · 19.2k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

• getmaxun/maxun

  Open-source tool for building web scrapers and crawlers without code.

  TypeScript · 18.1k stars · last merge 2026-10-26

  Welcomes AI-assisted work