# Find and claim an issue On this page, you choose what you want to work on. As a contributor you can work on whatever you want. If you are new to contributing, you should start by working with our known issues. ## Understand the issue types An existing issue is something reported by a Docker user. As issues come in, our maintainers triage them. Triage is its own topic. For now, it is important for you to know that triage includes ranking issues according to difficulty. Triaged issues have one of these labels:

Level	Experience level guideline
exp/beginner	You have made less than 10 contributions in your life time to any open source project.
exp/novice	You have made more than 10 contributions to an open source project or at least 5 contributions to Docker.
exp/proficient	You have made more than 5 contributions to Docker which amount to at least 200 code lines or 1000 documentation lines.
exp/expert	You have made less than 20 commits to Docker which amount to 500-1000 code lines or 1000-3000 documentation lines.
exp/master	You have made more than 20 commits to Docker and greater than 1000 code lines or 3000 documentation lines.

As the table states, these labels are meant as guidelines. You might have written a whole plugin for Docker in a personal project and never contributed to Docker. With that kind of experience, you could take on an exp/expert or exp/master level task. ## Claim a beginner or novice issue In this section, you find and claim an open documentation lines issue. 1. Go to the `docker/docker` repository. 2. Click on the "Issues" link. A list of the open issues appears.  3. Look for the exp/beginner items on the list. 4. Click on the "labels" dropdown and select exp/beginner. The system filters to show only open exp/beginner issues. 5. Open an issue that interests you. The comments on the issues can tell you both the problem and the potential solution. 6. Make sure that no other user has chosen to work on the issue. We don't allow external contributors to assign issues to themselves. So, you need to read the comments to find if a user claimed the issue by leaving a `#dibs` comment on the issue. 7. When you find an open issue that both interests you and is unclaimed, add a `#dibs` comment.  This example uses issue 11038. Your issue # will be different depending on what you claimed. After a moment, Gordon the Docker bot, changes the issue status to claimed. 8. Make a note of the issue number; you'll need it later. ## Sync your fork and create a new branch If you have followed along in this guide, you forked the `docker/docker` repository. Maybe that was an hour ago or a few days ago. In any case, before you start working on your issue, sync your repository with the upstream `docker/docker` master. Syncing ensures your repository has the latest changes. To sync your repository: 1. Open a terminal on your local host. 2. Change directory to the `docker-fork` root. $ cd ~/repos/docker-fork 3. Checkout the master branch. $ git checkout master Switched to branch 'master' Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'. Recall that `origin/master` is a branch on your remote GitHub repository. 4. Make sure you have the upstream remote `docker/docker` by listing them. $ git remote -v origin https://github.com/moxiegirl/docker.git (fetch) origin https://github.com/moxiegirl/docker.git (push) upstream https://github.com/docker/docker.git (fetch) upstream https://github.com/docker/docker.git (push) If the `upstream` is missing, add it. $ git remote add upstream https://github.com/docker/docker.git 5. Fetch all the changes from the `upstream master` branch. $ git fetch upstream master remote: Counting objects: 141, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (29/29), done. remote: Total 141 (delta 52), reused 46 (delta 46), pack-reused 66 Receiving objects: 100% (141/141), 112.43 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (79/79), done. From github.com:docker/docker * branch master -> FETCH_HEAD This command says get all the changes from the `master` branch belonging to the `upstream` remote. 7. Rebase your local master with the `upstream/master`. $ git rebase upstream/master First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it... Fast-forwarded master to upstream/master. This command applies all the commits from the upstream master to your local master. 8. Check the status of your local branch. $ git status On branch master Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 38 commits. (use "git push" to publish your local commits) nothing to commit, working directory clean Your local repository now has all the changes from the `upstream` remote. You need to push the changes to your own remote fork which is `origin master`. 9. Push the rebased master to `origin master`. $ git push origin master Username for 'https://github.com': moxiegirl Password for 'https://moxiegirl@github.com': Counting objects: 223, done. Compressing objects: 100% (38/38), done. Writing objects: 100% (69/69), 8.76 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done. Total 69 (delta 53), reused 47 (delta 31) To https://github.com/moxiegirl/docker.git 8e107a9..5035fa1 master -> master 9. Create a new feature branch to work on your issue. Your branch name should have the format `XXXX-descriptive` where `XXXX` is the issue number you are working on. For example: $ git checkout -b 11038-fix-rhel-link Switched to a new branch '11038-fix-rhel-link' Your branch should be up-to-date with the `upstream/master`. Why? Because you branched off a freshly synced master. Let's check this anyway in the next step. 9. Rebase your branch from upstream/master. $ git rebase upstream/master Current branch 11038-fix-rhel-link is up to date. At this point, your local branch, your remote repository, and the Docker repository all have identical code. You are ready to make changes for your issue. ## Where to go next At this point, you know what you want to work on and you have a branch to do your work in. Go onto the next section to learn [how to work on your changes](/project/work-issue/).