Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
14 messages between Aug 26, 2026 and Oct 5, 2026, from Christian Couder, Usman Akinyemi, Kaartic Sivaraam, Pablo Sabater, Siddharth Asthana.
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Hi everyone,
Open Source communities have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm UTC to sign up to participate as mentoring organizations in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort (see https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2026-02-06/may-2026-call-for-mentoring-organizations/). And (co)mentors have until that same time to submit project descriptions.
Last year the Git community mentored a single intern. For a long time GitHub or GitLab used to sponsor Outreachy interns working on Git, but last year both declined to do it, so the intern was sponsored by the Git project itself.
Let us know if you want to help as a (co)mentor or an Org Admin, if you know a company that would sponsor an intern, if you have ideas for projects that we could propose, or if you have an opinion on Git participating again this year, or on how we should select interns, etc.
I am likely to mentor and help as an Org Admin again this year unless we decide not to participate.
Thanks.
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Wed, Aug 26, 2026 at 4:29 PM Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
Show 7 quoted lines
>
> Open Source communities have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm UTC to
> sign up to participate as mentoring organizations in Outreachy's
> December 2026 cohort (see
> https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2026-02-06/may-2026-call-for-mentoring-organizations/).
> And (co)mentors have until that same time to submit project
> descriptions.
I was already waiting for this.
>
> Last year the Git community mentored a single intern. For a long time
And to add to this, the intern later went on to co-mentor a GSOC intern this year. And also will be presenting his project in the coming Git conference. I was also a previous Outreachy intern myself. Because of this, I believe the program is very much valuable to the community.
Show 9 quoted lines
> GitHub or GitLab used to sponsor Outreachy interns working on Git, but
> last year both declined to do it, so the intern was sponsored by the
> Git project itself.
>
> Let us know if you want to help as a (co)mentor or an Org Admin, if
> you know a company that would sponsor an intern, if you have ideas for
> projects that we could propose, or if you have an opinion on Git
> participating again this year, or on how we should select interns,
> etc.
I will like to be a co-mentor again this year.
Show 5 quoted lines
>
> I am likely to mentor and help as an Org Admin again this year unless
> we decide not to participate.
>
> Thanks.
>
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
Hi Christian,
On 8/26/26 16:25, Christian Couder wrote:
Show 20 quoted lines
> Hi everyone,
>
> Open Source communities have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm UTC to
> sign up to participate as mentoring organizations in Outreachy's
> December 2026 cohort (see
> https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2026-02-06/may-2026-call-for-mentoring-organizations/).
> And (co)mentors have until that same time to submit project
> descriptions.
>
> Last year the Git community mentored a single intern. For a long time
> GitHub or GitLab used to sponsor Outreachy interns working on Git, but
> last year both declined to do it, so the intern was sponsored by the
> Git project itself.
>
> Let us know if you want to help as a (co)mentor or an Org Admin, if
> you know a company that would sponsor an intern, if you have ideas for
> projects that we could propose, or if you have an opinion on Git
> participating again this year, or on how we should select interns,
> etc.
>
I too believe it would be great if Git could participate in Outreachy this year.
I would be willing to co-mentor a project this year. I could also help as an org admin if needed.
Also, Pablo was interested to volunteer as a co-mentor for Outreachy. I've added him in Cc.
-- Sivaraam
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Wed Sep 2, 2026 at 2:20 PM WEST, Kaartic Sivaraam wrote:
Show 35 quoted lines
> Hi Christian,
>
> On 8/26/26 16:25, Christian Couder wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> Open Source communities have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm UTC to
>> sign up to participate as mentoring organizations in Outreachy's
>> December 2026 cohort (see
>> https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2026-02-06/may-2026-call-for-mentoring-organizations/).
>> And (co)mentors have until that same time to submit project
>> descriptions.
>>
>> Last year the Git community mentored a single intern. For a long time
>> GitHub or GitLab used to sponsor Outreachy interns working on Git, but
>> last year both declined to do it, so the intern was sponsored by the
>> Git project itself.
>>
>> Let us know if you want to help as a (co)mentor or an Org Admin, if
>> you know a company that would sponsor an intern, if you have ideas for
>> projects that we could propose, or if you have an opinion on Git
>> participating again this year, or on how we should select interns,
>> etc.
>>
>
> I too believe it would be great if Git could participate in Outreachy
> this year.
>
> I would be willing to co-mentor a project this year. I could also help
> as an org admin if needed.
>
> Also, Pablo was interested to volunteer as a co-mentor for Outreachy.
> I've added him in Cc.
>
> --
> Sivaraam
Hello,
Yes, I'd also like to volunteer as a co-mentor for Outreachy this year.
Although I won't have as much time available as I did during the summer, now that the university semester has started, I believe I can still make enough time to review and mentor.
I do have exams in October and January, but they shouldn't make me unavailable for a whole week, so I don't expect them to be a problem.
Regards, Pablo
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Wed, Aug 26, 2026 at 12:55 PM Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com> wrote:
Show 6 quoted lines
> Open Source communities have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm UTC to
> sign up to participate as mentoring organizations in Outreachy's
> December 2026 cohort (see
> https://www.outreachy.org/blog/2026-02-06/may-2026-call-for-mentoring-organizations/).
> And (co)mentors have until that same time to submit project
> descriptions.
Thank you Usman, Kaartic and Pablo for volunteering to co-mentor!
As no one objected to Git participating in Outreachy, I will submit a Community Application for Git very soon.
We will still have to sign up as mentors and find and submit projects for interns to work on soon. We have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm UTC, which is less than one week from now.
I have been thinking about the following projects:
1. Continue removing global state (and perhaps start libifying some
parts of the code base).
I think Tian Yuchen said there is not much work left related to "environment.{c,h}". So maybe we need to adjust the project compared to its previous description or maybe make it about actually libifying some parts of the code base.
2. Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed.
There are still a number of places in the code base where command arguments are scanned or parsed using ad hoc hand-rolled code instead of an existing API like the parse-options API or the early-scan API I recently proposed in https://lore.kernel.org/git/20260902161047.476753-1-christian.couder@gmail.com/. Those pieces of ad hoc parsing or scanning code are often buggy and difficult to maintain. I think porting them to an API while improving that API if necessary can be an interesting project and bring a lot of long term benefits to the project. As the parse-options API is already quite feature-full, there are likely some areas where porting the parsing code to it should be relatively easy which is newcomer friendly.
Let me know your opinion about these and if you have other project ideas.
> Last year the Git community mentored a single intern. For a long time
> GitHub or GitLab used to sponsor Outreachy interns working on Git, but
> last year both declined to do it, so the intern was sponsored by the
> Git project itself.
I will start poking people at GitLab about this, but it would be nice if we could get some kind of help with this regarding other companies too.
Thanks, Christian.
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Sat, Sep 5, 2026 at 10:26 AM Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you Usman, Kaartic and Pablo for volunteering to co-mentor!
>
> As no one objected to Git participating in Outreachy, I will submit a
> Community Application for Git very soon.
I have submitted a Community Application for Git, see:
https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/git/
It says that we are willing to mentor and sponsor 2 interns. Hopefully we can have two (co-)mentors for each intern.
Show 30 quoted lines
> We will still have to sign up as mentors and find and submit projects
> for interns to work on soon. We have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm
> UTC, which is less than one week from now.
>
> I have been thinking about the following projects:
>
> 1. Continue removing global state (and perhaps start libifying some
> parts of the code base).
>
> I think Tian Yuchen said there is not much work left related to
> "environment.{c,h}". So maybe we need to adjust the project compared
> to its previous description or maybe make it about actually libifying
> some parts of the code base.
>
> 2. Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed.
>
> There are still a number of places in the code base where command
> arguments are scanned or parsed using ad hoc hand-rolled code instead
> of an existing API like the parse-options API or the early-scan API I
> recently proposed in
> https://lore.kernel.org/git/20260902161047.476753-1-christian.couder@gmail.com/.
> Those pieces of ad hoc parsing or scanning code are often buggy and
> difficult to maintain. I think porting them to an API while improving
> that API if necessary can be an interesting project and bring a lot of
> long term benefits to the project. As the parse-options API is already
> quite feature-full, there are likely some areas where porting the
> parsing code to it should be relatively easy which is newcomer
> friendly.
>
> Let me know your opinion about these and if you have other project ideas.As no other project ideas were suggested, I submitted the project ideas I mentioned above. You can see them in the "Approved Projects for Git" section of the above mentioned page (https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/git/) as:
- Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed
(https://www.outreachy.org/outreachy-dec-2026-internship-cohort/communities/git/#improve-how-command-arguments-and-options-are-scan)
- Reduce Git’s global state to enable Git's libification
(https://www.outreachy.org/outreachy-dec-2026-internship-cohort/communities/git/#reduce-gits-global-state-to-enable-gits-libificati)
The links to these projects are currently only available to approved mentors and coordinators. I applied to mentor both of these projects as this was required to submit the projects, but I am very much willing to remove myself from mentoring one of these projects.
So please apply to (co-)mentor one of these projects, or submit other projects you are willing to mentor if you prefer.
Also let me know if you see things that could be improved in these projects or the Community Application for Git.
Show 8 quoted lines
> > Last year the Git community mentored a single intern. For a long time
> > GitHub or GitLab used to sponsor Outreachy interns working on Git, but
> > last year both declined to do it, so the intern was sponsored by the
> > Git project itself.
>
> I will start poking people at GitLab about this, but it would be nice
> if we could get some kind of help with this regarding other companies
> too.
I have mentioned GitLab, GitHub and OpenAI as organizations that could potentially sponsor Outreachy interns. I have also proposed an "Outreachy sponsoring" topic to be discussed at the Git Contributor's Summit 2026 next week.
Thanks.
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On 09/09/26 14:42, Christian Couder wrote:
Show 63 quoted lines
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2026 at 10:26 AM Christian Couder
> <christian.couder@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Usman, Kaartic and Pablo for volunteering to co-mentor!
>>
>> As no one objected to Git participating in Outreachy, I will submit a
>> Community Application for Git very soon.
>
> I have submitted a Community Application for Git, see:
>
> https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/git/
>
> It says that we are willing to mentor and sponsor 2 interns. Hopefully
> we can have two (co-)mentors for each intern.
>
>> We will still have to sign up as mentors and find and submit projects
>> for interns to work on soon. We have until September 11, 2026, at 4 pm
>> UTC, which is less than one week from now.
>>
>> I have been thinking about the following projects:
>>
>> 1. Continue removing global state (and perhaps start libifying some
>> parts of the code base).
>>
>> I think Tian Yuchen said there is not much work left related to
>> "environment.{c,h}". So maybe we need to adjust the project compared
>> to its previous description or maybe make it about actually libifying
>> some parts of the code base.
>>
>> 2. Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed.
>>
>> There are still a number of places in the code base where command
>> arguments are scanned or parsed using ad hoc hand-rolled code instead
>> of an existing API like the parse-options API or the early-scan API I
>> recently proposed in
>> https://lore.kernel.org/git/20260902161047.476753-1-christian.couder@gmail.com/.
>> Those pieces of ad hoc parsing or scanning code are often buggy and
>> difficult to maintain. I think porting them to an API while improving
>> that API if necessary can be an interesting project and bring a lot of
>> long term benefits to the project. As the parse-options API is already
>> quite feature-full, there are likely some areas where porting the
>> parsing code to it should be relatively easy which is newcomer
>> friendly.
>>
>> Let me know your opinion about these and if you have other project ideas.
>
> As no other project ideas were suggested, I submitted the project
> ideas I mentioned above. You can see them in the "Approved Projects
> for Git" section of the above mentioned page
> (https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/git/) as:
>
> - Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed
> (https://www.outreachy.org/outreachy-dec-2026-internship-cohort/communities/git/#improve-how-command-arguments-and-options-are-scan)
> - Reduce Git’s global state to enable Git's libification
> (https://www.outreachy.org/outreachy-dec-2026-internship-cohort/communities/git/#reduce-gits-global-state-to-enable-gits-libificati)
>
> The links to these projects are currently only available to approved
> mentors and coordinators. I applied to mentor both of these projects
> as this was required to submit the projects, but I am very much
> willing to remove myself from mentoring one of these projects.
>
> So please apply to (co-)mentor one of these projects, or submit other
> projects you are willing to mentor if you prefer.Applied as co-mentor on the parse-options / early-scan one.
Thanks, Siddharth
Show 19 quoted lines
>
> Also let me know if you see things that could be improved in these
> projects or the Community Application for Git.
>
>>> Last year the Git community mentored a single intern. For a long time
>>> GitHub or GitLab used to sponsor Outreachy interns working on Git, but
>>> last year both declined to do it, so the intern was sponsored by the
>>> Git project itself.
>>
>> I will start poking people at GitLab about this, but it would be nice
>> if we could get some kind of help with this regarding other companies
>> too.
>
> I have mentioned GitLab, GitHub and OpenAI as organizations that could
> potentially sponsor Outreachy interns. I have also proposed an
> "Outreachy sponsoring" topic to be discussed at the Git Contributor's
> Summit 2026 next week.
>
> Thanks.
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
Hi Siddarth,
On 9/14/26 12:08, Siddharth Asthana wrote:
Show 12 quoted lines
>>
>> The links to these projects are currently only available to approved
>> mentors and coordinators. I applied to mentor both of these projects
>> as this was required to submit the projects, but I am very much
>> willing to remove myself from mentoring one of these projects.
>>
>> So please apply to (co-)mentor one of these projects, or submit other
>> projects you are willing to mentor if you prefer.
>
>
> Applied as co-mentor on the parse-options / early-scan one.
>
Thank you for volunteering! I've approved you as a mentor for that project.
--
Sivaraam
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Wed Sep 9, 2026 at 10:12 AM WEST, Christian Couder wrote:
Show 26 quoted lines
> On Sat, Sep 5, 2026 at 10:26 AM Christian Couder
> <christian.couder@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Let me know your opinion about these and if you have other project ideas.
>
> As no other project ideas were suggested, I submitted the project
> ideas I mentioned above. You can see them in the "Approved Projects
> for Git" section of the above mentioned page
> (https://www.outreachy.org/communities/cfp/git/) as:
>
> - Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed
> (https://www.outreachy.org/outreachy-dec-2026-internship-cohort/communities/git/#improve-how-command-arguments-and-options-are-scan)
> - Reduce Git’s global state to enable Git's libification
> (https://www.outreachy.org/outreachy-dec-2026-internship-cohort/communities/git/#reduce-gits-global-state-to-enable-gits-libificati)
>
> The links to these projects are currently only available to approved
> mentors and coordinators. I applied to mentor both of these projects
> as this was required to submit the projects, but I am very much
> willing to remove myself from mentoring one of these projects.
>
> So please apply to (co-)mentor one of these projects, or submit other
> projects you are willing to mentor if you prefer.
>
> Also let me know if you see things that could be improved in these
> projects or the Community Application for Git.
>
Hello,
I've applied as co-mentor for the libification one, this way we have at least one mentor for each project.
Regards, Pablo
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On 9/14/26 14:07, Pablo Sabater wrote:
>
> I've applied as co-mentor for the libification one, this way we have at
> least one mentor for each project.
>
Cool, Pablo. I've approved your application and also Usman's. Right now we appear to have 2 mentors per project:
- Reduce Git’s global state to enable Git's libification
- Usman Akinyemi
- Pablo Sabater - Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed
- Christian Couder
- Siddarth AsthanaGiven that we already have enough mentors for both the projects and I have some bandwidth, I wonder if it would make sense to also propose the projects that we proposed for GSoC but were not actually taken up by anyone. The following are the projects:
- Implement promisor remote fetch ordering
- Enhance promisor-remote protocol for better-connected remotes
More details regarding the project can be found here: https://git.github.io/SoC-2026-Ideas/
Thoughts?
--
Sivaraam
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Mon, Sep 14, 2026 at 11:41 AM Kaartic Sivaraam <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com> wrote:
Show 19 quoted lines
>
> On 9/14/26 14:07, Pablo Sabater wrote:
> >
> > I've applied as co-mentor for the libification one, this way we have at
> > least one mentor for each project.
> >
>
> Cool, Pablo. I've approved your application and also Usman's. Right now
> we appear to have 2 mentors per project:
>
> - Reduce Git’s global state to enable Git's libification
>
> - Usman Akinyemi
> - Pablo Sabater
>
> - Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed
>
> - Christian Couder
> - Siddarth Asthana
Show 6 quoted lines
> Given that we already have enough mentors for both the projects and I
> have some bandwidth, I wonder if it would make sense to also propose the
> projects that we proposed for GSoC but were not actually taken up by
> anyone. The following are the projects:
>
> - Implement promisor remote fetch ordering
I think it's indeed a good idea to propose this project, even if it seems more difficult than the other projects we already propose.
> - Enhance promisor-remote protocol for better-connected remotes
This one seems even more risky and difficult to me. I would suggest only proposing the previous one.
Anyway as you will mentor it, feel free to propose the project you prefer.
Thanks, Christian.
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On 9/17/26 02:28, Christian Couder wrote:
Show 20 quoted lines
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2026 at 11:41 AM Kaartic Sivaraam
>>> I've applied as co-mentor for the libification one, this way we have at
>>> least one mentor for each project.
>>>
>>
>> Cool, Pablo. I've approved your application and also Usman's. Right now
>> we appear to have 2 mentors per project:
>>
>> - Reduce Git’s global state to enable Git's libification
>>
>> - Usman Akinyemi
>> - Pablo Sabater
>>
>> - Improve how command arguments and options are scanned and parsed
>>
>> - Christian Couder
>> - Siddarth Asthana
>
> Great, thanks!
>
Just for clarity, this is tentative mentor allocation. We may need to shuffle it a little bit based on the applications we receive. We'll see how it goes.
Show 10 quoted lines
>> Given that we already have enough mentors for both the projects and I
>> have some bandwidth, I wonder if it would make sense to also propose the
>> projects that we proposed for GSoC but were not actually taken up by
>> anyone. The following are the projects:
>>
>> - Implement promisor remote fetch ordering
>
> I think it's indeed a good idea to propose this project, even if it
> seems more difficult than the other projects we already propose.
>
Thank you, Christian! I have proposed the project. Kindly check and approve it at your convenience. We have until Oct. 5, 2026 at 4pm UTC to approve it.
If anyone is willing to co-mentor it, please chime in.
Show 5 quoted lines
>> - Enhance promisor-remote protocol for better-connected remotes
>
> This one seems even more risky and difficult to me. I would suggest
> only proposing the previous one.
>
Cool. I've skipped it for now.
> Anyway as you will mentor it, feel free to propose the project you prefer.
>
I will mentor it but may need some help / guidance from you as you have a more experience with this area of the code. I hope that's fine.
--
Sivaraam
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Thu, Sep 17, 2026 at 1:07 PM Kaartic Sivaraam <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just for clarity, this is tentative mentor allocation. We may need to
> shuffle it a little bit based on the applications we receive. We'll see
> how it goes.
Yeah, let's see later how it goes.
Show 14 quoted lines
> >> Given that we already have enough mentors for both the projects and I
> >> have some bandwidth, I wonder if it would make sense to also propose the
> >> projects that we proposed for GSoC but were not actually taken up by
> >> anyone. The following are the projects:
> >>
> >> - Implement promisor remote fetch ordering
> >
> > I think it's indeed a good idea to propose this project, even if it
> > seems more difficult than the other projects we already propose.
> >
>
> Thank you, Christian! I have proposed the project. Kindly check and
> approve it at your convenience. We have until Oct. 5, 2026 at 4pm UTC to
> approve it.
I have just approved it. Thanks again for proposing it.
> If anyone is willing to co-mentor it, please chime in.
Sure, it would be nice if we could get another co-mentor.
> I will mentor it but may need some help / guidance from you as you have
> a more experience with this area of the code. I hope that's fine.
Yeah, I will definitely help, and I can probably even co-mentor, but let's see if someone else is interested first.
Re: Participating in Outreachy's December 2026 cohort
On Sat Sep 19, 2026 at 2:43 PM WEST, Christian Couder wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 17, 2026 at 1:07 PM Kaartic Sivaraam
> <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com> wrote:
>
[...]
Hi all,
I wanted to let you know that I'm no longer sure I'll have the time needed to properly co-mentor, and I'm worried about ruining an intern's experience.
I'll still try to review patches and help where I can, but I think it's better if I'm not an official co-mentor.
I'll wait before withdrawing on the Outreachy site, in case you'd like to reorganize things first.
Sorry for the change.
Regards, Pablo