About

FirstPR Radar is a free online good first issue finder tool designed to help you go from “I want to contribute” to a realistic, ready-to-execute first pull request plan. Instead of dumping a long list of stale issues, it matches your tech stack, contribution type, Git confidence, and time budget to issues you can actually finish — then generates a repo-aware “First PR Flight Plan” checklist you can copy into your notes.

This tool is built for beginners and busy developers who want high-signal open source opportunities without wasting hours on abandoned repositories or unclear tasks. Each issue is ranked using freshness and responsiveness heuristics (recent updates, recent comments, comment volume signals, and repo activity) and validated for onboarding quality (README, CONTRIBUTING.md, templates, and setup signals). The result is a shortlist you can trust, plus transparency into why each match scored well.

The viral feature is the First PR Flight Plan: a one-click, repo-aware checklist that adapts to the repository’s onboarding files and flags missing steps (for example, no CONTRIBUTING.md, no templates, no tests, or heavy setup). It helps you avoid common first-PR pitfalls like unclear branch naming, missing test commands, or not knowing where to ask questions — before you invest time.

Common use cases

• Bootcamp grads finding newcomer-friendly issues aligned to their stack (React, Python, Node, etc.).
• Engineering managers and mentors sharing a shortlist with a mentee using a shareable URL state.
• Students planning a weekend contribution sprint with a strict time budget.
• Docs writers and QA-minded developers targeting documentation or test-focused starter PRs.

Compared to generic “good first issue” lists, this tool is better because it prioritizes execution readiness: onboarding validation, repo activity signals, and a copyable checklist per repo. It also includes stickiness features that make it practical day-to-day: saved searches and presets, local history of viewed/liked issues, keyboard shortcuts for fast triage, and export to JSON/CSV for offline planning.

FAQ

• Does this tool require a GitHub token?
  Not necessarily. The UI can run in Demo mode, and in production you can point it at a Cloudflare Worker that handles GitHub API calls (including optional token usage) and returns a compact payload.
• How does scoring work?
  Each issue gets a transparent breakdown: freshness (updates/comments/repo push), responsiveness heuristics, onboarding file checks, stack/type match bonuses, and complexity penalties for “sprawl” signals.
• Can I share the same shortlist with a mentor?
  Yes. The Share feature encodes your filters into the URL and stores a local snapshot id for the current shortlist so you can quickly reopen it later on the same device.
• Can I export results for tracking?
  Yes. Download JSON or CSV including score breakdowns and the generated First PR Flight Plan for each issue.