Documentation

Getting Started

OSS Notify helps you find open source issues that match your skills. Get set up in three steps:

1. Sign in with GitHub — Click "Get Started" and authenticate with your GitHub account. We only request read access to your public profile and email. We never write to your repos or access private data.
2. Set your skills — During onboarding, select the programming languages and frameworks you know. This helps us match you with relevant issues. You can update these anytime from Settings.
3. Watch repositories — Search for repos you're interested in or choose from our curated & featured repos. We'll start monitoring them for new issues that match your skills.

Once set up, you'll receive curated issue digests via email. No dashboards to check — issues come to you.

Watching Repositories

Watched repositories are the repos OSS Notify monitors on your behalf. When new issues are created in a watched repo, we check if they match your skills and filters.

Adding repositories

From your Dashboard, use the search bar to find any public GitHub repository by name. You can also browse curated & featured repositories selected by our community for contributors.

Repository limits

• Free plan: Watch up to 2 repositories
• Pro plan: Watch unlimited repositories

Removing repositories

To stop watching a repo, go to your Dashboard and remove it from your watched list. You'll stop receiving issues from that repo in your next digest.

Issue Matching

OSS Notify matches issues to your skills so you only see issues you can actually work on.

Skill-based matching

We analyze your selected languages and frameworks to match you with issues from repos that use your stack. The more accurately you set your skills, the better your matches will be.

Label filters

Filter issues by labels to see exactly what you care about:

• Free plan: Standard filters including good first issue and help wanted
• Pro plan: Create custom label filters with your own rules for fine-grained control

Digests & Notifications

Instead of constant notifications, OSS Notify sends you a single email digest with all your matched issues grouped by repository.

Email digests

• Free plan: Weekly email digest
• Pro plan: Daily email digest — your morning brief for open source contributions

Additional channels (Pro)

Pro users can also receive notifications through:

• Slack — via webhook URL
• Discord — via webhook URL
• Telegram — via chat ID

Configure notification channels from your Settings page. You can enable or disable each channel independently.

Discover Feed

The Discover page lets you browse open source issues from across GitHub. Use it to find interesting projects and issues even from repos you're not watching.

The Discover feed is available to all users, including those on the Free plan. You can filter issues by language and labels to find issues that match your interests.

PR DetectionPro

One of the most frustrating things in open source is starting work on an issue only to discover someone else already submitted a pull request. PR Detection solves this.

For Pro users, OSS Notify automatically detects linked pull requests on issues and shows their status (open, merged, or closed). This helps you prioritize issues that are truly available.

You can also enable Hide issues with open PRs to automatically filter out issues that already have active pull requests, so your digest only shows unclaimed issues.

Saved Issues

Found an interesting issue but not ready to work on it yet? Save it for later. Saved issues are accessible from your Dashboard so you can come back to them anytime. This feature is available on both the Free and Pro plans.

Plans & Pricing

OSS Notify offers two plans:

View full pricing details on the pricing page. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time from your Settings.

Account & Settings

Manage your account from the Settings page in your dashboard. Here you can:

• Update your programming languages and skills
• Change your digest frequency
• Configure notification channels (email, Slack, Discord, Telegram)
• Manage your subscription
• Delete your account

When you delete your account, all your data is permanently removed — including your profile, watched repos, saved issues, notifications, and notification channel settings. This action cannot be undone.

FAQ