Welcome to the Optimism Collective Ecosystem Contributions repository. Here you'll find various different ways to contribute to the Optimism Collective so that we can build an economy that works for humans, together.

• Contribution Categories
• Finding a Project
• Working on a Project
• Funding and Rewards
• Support and Additional Resources

Different ways to contribute to the Optimism Collective are loosely organized into "categories" which give a sense of the relative scope, utility, and complexity of any given project. Refer to the sections below to understand what each of these categories mean and what type of tasks or ideas you can expect to find within a category.

Contribution Opportunities are concrete and tightly-scoped ways for you to contribute to the Optimism Collective ecosystem (e.g., “review the Bedrock smart contracts” or “fix this specific bug”). Contribution Opportunities are generally smaller tasks and require less context so that you can get to work right away. Available opportunities might touch many different codebases within the broader Optimism ecosystem.

Click here to view all available Contribution Opportunities.

Mad Science Project Ideas are ideas for projects that could work well as a fun hack or a hackathon project. Mad Science Project Ideas may not have clear immediate value for the Optimism ecosystem (yet) but act as useful explorations of novel concepts. These ideas are great for anyone looking to mess around with new tools and push the boundaries of what's possible with crypto.

Click here to view all available Mad Science Project Ideas.

Draft Project Ideas are ideas for projects that have value for the Optimism ecosystem but may not yet be fully understood in a manner that can be deeply specified. Here you'll find stuff that makes you think, "this would be really useful, but I'm not exactly sure how it would work in practice". Are you going to be the one to figure out how it should work?

Click here to view all available Draft Project Ideas.

Ecosystem Project Ideas are ideas for projects that have clear value for the Optimism ecosystem and are understood well enough that they can be (mostly) fully specified. Ecosystem Project Ideas contain a concrete project task, a basic specification for what the project could look like, and a list of features that would make the project most valuable. Ecosystem Project Ideas tend to be larger than Contribution Opportunities.

Click here to view all available Ecosystem Project Ideas.

Foundation Missions (aka RFPs) are proposals for specific initiatives that achieve an Optimism Collective Intent — a directional goal that helps the Collective align and work together. You can think of a Foundation Mission as an arrow aiming at the target (the Intent). Just as there are many paths an arrow might take on its way to a target, there are many different Foundation Missions that might accomplish an Intent.

Foundation Missions, unlike the tasks listed in other categories, act as requests for proposals (RFPs) that teams can apply for. Generally, a limited number of teams are selected to work on a given Foundation Mission at any given time. Foundation Missions are also typically come with attached grants for the completion of the Mission.

Click here to view all available Foundation Missions.

Looking for the perfect project? Try filtering by the labels that we've attached to every open issue.

• ✨ Contribution Opportunities
• 🧪 Mad Science Project Ideas
• 📝 Draft Project Ideas
• 🔴 Ecosystem Project Ideas
• 🏛️ Foundation Missions (RFPs)

• Tag: Contracts
• Tag: Protocol
• Tag: Attestations
• Tag: Chain Infra
• Tag: Consumers
• Tag: Dev Tools
• Tag: Gaming
• Tag: Governance
• Tag: OP Stack
• Tag: DeFi
• Tag: Documentation
• Tag: Meta

• Estimated Effort: Small
• Estimated Effort: Medium
• Estimated Effort: Large
• Estimated Effort: XLarge

• Estimated Impact: Small
• Estimated Impact: Medium
• Estimated Impact: Large
• Estimated Impact: XLarge

Foundation Missions (RFPs) are the most formal type of project listed within this repository. Foundation Missions generally include OP token grants for completion and typically require teams to explicitly propose to work on a given task during an open proposal period. One or more teams are selected to work on the task (based on the parameters of the Mission) and OP token grants are distributed upon completion. You should refer to the exact details of the Mission you're interested in working on to get a better understanding of the working process.

All other projects (any that are not Foundation Missions) do not have any formal working process or proposal period. You are free to work on any of these tasks at any time. We highly recommend making a comment within the project's corresponding GitHub issue when you've decided to start work. This can help reduce duplicated work and can help connect you to other contributors who may be interested in working on the same task.

Your time is your most valuable asset. The Optimism Collective believes that impact to the collective should be rewarded with profit to the individual. The Optimism Collective ecosystem various different pathways for you to be potentially funded or rewarded for the work that you do. Here we'll take a look at the options available to you.

Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) is a mechanism that rewards people and projects for the positive impact they have on the Optimism Collective beyond the profit that they already receive. RetroPGF attempts to balance the equation impact=profit. If you're creating value for the Collective that isn't already being rewarded (e.g., via a sustainable business model), the Collective will do its best to fill the gap through its regular RetroPGF rounds.

RetroPGF rounds currently occur approximately once per quarter and will become more regular as time goes on. Rounds include a voting process in which a dynamic set of real people (called "badgeholders") vote on a distribution of OP tokens to nominated projects. The latest RetroPGF round, RetroPGF#2, distributed 10m OP tokens to 195 nominated projects (all 195 nominated projects were rewarded in this case).

Any project can be nominated for a RetroPGF round (including any completed project from this repository!). Exact distribution details are determined by the set of badgeholders for a given round, the scope of the round, and the impact that each nominated project has had relative to its profit.

RetroPGF is always a fantastic default option for being rewarded for the work that you do. Unlike traditional up-front grants, RetroPGF is distributed after impact has already been made and there is never a 100% likelihood that any given project will be rewarded. We've done our best in this repository to reflect tasks that are likely to be valuable to the Optimism Collective ecosystem and have specified the potential impact of each project in the "Impact" section of each task. Existence of a project within this repository does NOT as a guarantee that the project will be rewarded via RetroPGF.

Please feel free to liberally use the comment section of a task to ask clarifying questions that might help you make a decision of whether or not to work on a project.

Most of the Foundation Missions (RFPs) within this repository include attached OP token grants that are distributed on completion of the proposed project. Foundation Missions, unlike other contribution types in this repository, typically have an application period during which teams can propose to work on a given Mission. A limited number of teams are selected for these types of Foundation Missions, each of which receive the attached grant on completion of the Mission.

Exact details about the size of the OP grant, the application process, and the number of teams that can be selected for a given Mission are all clearly defined on the GitHub issue describing that Mission.

The Optimism Collective also coordinates an array of grant programs operated by Optimism Collective Governance. Governance Grants are typically up-front grants and require projects to make a detailed proposal. Governance Grants may include restrictions on scope and usage of the grant. You should always refer to the forum page describing each grant to better understand any details or restrictions.

As of 2023-05-25, the following Governance Grant programs are currently active or will become active soon:

• Token House Missions (begins July 8th 2023)
  • Grants for projects that support one of the Optimism Collective Intents
• Optimism Grants Council (begins July 8th 2023)
  • Focused on "builders & novel usecases" and "growth experiments"
  • Generally small (sub 50k OP) grants
• Partner Fund (ongoing)
  • Reach out to the Optimism Foundation team if you feel the above mechanisms don't fit your needs

We want to do everything can to help you be successful while working on your contribution. Here you'll find various resources and communities that may help you complete a project. Please also feel free to ask for support directly in the comments of the GitHub issue that corresponds to the project that you're working on. Members of the Optimism community check these comments daily to provide support.

• Optimism Discord
• Optimism Governance Forum

• Optimism Documentation
• OP Stack Documentation
• Optimism Help Center