Popular PnP repositories and how to get started contributing4 min read

Introduction

I recently wrote a post called My GitHub cheat sheet for PnP contributions — an interactive cheat sheet which explains the GitHub commands that I use when I start a contribution. The post is interactive: you just tell it your GitHub username and what repository you want to contribute to, and it customizes the instructions for you.

I also wrote another post talking about how impressed I am with David Warner II’s offer to help anyone with their first contribution.

After briefly chatting with I realized that the biggest hurdle for people is that they just don’t know where to get started. In my post, I recommend that you read the contribution guidelines for every repo, but I found that they are often hard to find in each repository.

I also say that most repositories want you to start from the dev branch, but as the Chris Kent pointed out in a PnP community call a while ago, some repositories prefer you use the master branch.

So, with David’s help, we compiled a list of the most common PnP repositories to help you get started.

The list contains the following:

• Repo: Name of the repository
• What is it?: Description of the repository
• Getting started: Links to the most likely resource if you want to get started contributing to that repository
• Branch: The branch you should target when submitting your pull requests

Please note that the information in each of the repositories can change and that you should always refer to the repository for the latest information.

Popular repositories

Repo	What is it?	Getting started	Branch
	SharePoint Documentation on usage and feature patterns for site owners and citizen developers https://docs.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/community
	Manage Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint Framework projects on any platform https://aka.ms/o365cli	– – –
	SharePoint PnP PowerShell CmdLets https://aka.ms/sppnp-powershell
	Office 365 Dev PnP Core component (.NET) targeted for increasing developer productivity with CSOM based solutions.
	SharePoint Patterns and Practices Reusable Client-side Libraries https://pnp.github.io/pnpjs
	Reusable React controls for SPFx solutions https://sharepoint.github.io/sp-dev-fx-controls-react/	– –
	Code samples and developer content targeted towards SharePoint Framework client-side extensions. https://aka.ms/spfx-extensions
	Sample solutions from community around the SharePoint Framework library component		Create from: Submit to:
	Reusable SPFx property pane controls – Open source initiative https://pnp.github.io/sp-dev-fx-property-controls/	– –
	Code samples and developer content targeted towards SharePoint Framework client-side web parts. http://aka.ms/spfx-webparts
	SharePoint List Formatting Samples https://pnp.github.io/sp-dev-list-formatting/
	All modernization tooling and guidance https://aka.ms/sppnp-modernize
	SharePoint Developer Documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/
	Code for the provisioning service hosted at lookbook.microsoft.com

Conclusion

Let’s keep this list up to date! If you find that we forgot a repository, or that something is wrong, let us know in the comments of via Twitter and we’ll get it updated!

Thanks to with putting together this list, and for always making yourself available to help people in this community.

This list wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of all of those who contributed (and continue to contribute) to the above repositories. Thank you for your contributions!

Photo credit

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Updates

• July 27, 2020: Updated repos within PnP organization.
• April 03, 2020: Yes, both the SPFx extensions and web parts samples repositories now ask you to submit to the master branch. This article was updated accordingly.
• March 03, 2020: This repository is getting a lot of traffic these days, so I figured I’d update it and add the super-useful repo
• November 25, 2019: has launched a new initiative to help anyone who wants to create their first PnP contribution. It is called and you can register to attend a live online hands-on session where he walks you through step-by-step instructions to create your first pull request.
• August 25, 2019: Thanks to for providing us with details for the SharePoint/sp-dev-modernization repository.
• August 23, 2019: Tweeted to remind us about SharePoint/PnP-Sites-Core. It is so foundational to other components, I don’t know how we missed it. Urgh! I hate to disappoint someone I hold in such high regard! Sorry!
• August 23, 2019: rightly pointed out that we forgot the PnPjs repository.