Hacktoberfest 2025: Welcome!

[monozoide]

🎃 Hacktoberfest 2025: Welcome! Start here (good first issues inside)

Welcome to MailLogSentinel’s Hacktoberfest 2025 hub!
We’re excited to meet new contributors of all backgrounds: Python developers, testers/sysadmins, and documentation folks. This thread centralizes how to get started, where to help, and what we expect.

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📌 About the project

MailLogSentinel monitors Postfix mail logs, detects suspicious login attempts, generates reports by email, and exports SQL data for dashboards. It’s in production and actively maintained.

• Repo: https://github.com/monozoide/MailLogSentinel
• License: GPL-3.0
• Language: Python

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🙌 Who can contribute?

• Testers / Sysadmins: run MLS on a mail server, report findings, share sanitized logs/outputs and UX feedback.
• Python devs: code review, refactors, bug fixes, performance, features, test coverage, CI.
• Docs & community: improve README/wiki, tutorials, examples, troubleshooting, FAQs.

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🚀 How to get started

1. Star & Fork the repo.

2. Pick an issue:

   • Good First Issues
   • Help Wanted
   • Hacktoberfest

3. Dev setup (quick):

   python -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate  # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Run tests

   pytest -q

5. Local usage (example):

   # Depending on your install, the executable may be `maillogsentinel` or `maillogsentinel.py`
   sudo maillogsentinel --setup --interactive
   maillogsentinel --report
   maillogsentinel --sql-export

6. Open a PR linked to the issue. Keep PRs focused and small (one topic/issue per PR).

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📐 Contribution guidelines

Please read:

• CONTRIBUTING
• Code of Conduct
• Security Policy

Coding style: follow PEP 8; use the linter/formatter defined in the repo (e.g. flake8/black/ruff if configured).
Tests: add/adjust tests when changing logic.

Docs: update README/wiki when behavior or flags change.

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✅ First‑PR checklist

• Issue linked (e.g., “Closes #123”).
• Small, focused changes; no unrelated formatting.
• pytest passes locally.
• lint with Flake or Black
• Docs updated if behavior changes.
• CI checks green (if any).

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🏷️ Hacktoberfest rules here

• Genuine contributions only. Spam/irrelevant PRs will be closed and may be marked as spam.
• Contributions that are purely generated by AI will be flagged as SPAM and rejected without further explanation.
• If a valid PR cannot be merged quickly, we may use the hacktoberfest-accepted label so it still counts.
• We’re happy to mentor beginners on good first issues — ask questions!

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💬 Ask for help

Use this discussion thread for quick questions, or open a dedicated Q&A discussion.
If you’re unsure about an approach, open a Draft PR early and we’ll guide you.

Thanks for being here — happy hacking! 🎉