By [Rob Bearman](https://twitter.com/robbearman) on May 8, 2017

Jan and I have been very busy the past several months starting up the
[Elix project](/content/elix/index.html), a library of high-quality web
components designed to support the
[Gold Standard Checklist](https://github.com/webcomponents/gold-standard/wiki).
Together with developers from Comcast, [Vaadin](https://vaadin.com/home),
[CommonTime](https://www.commontime.com/), and Google,
we participate in the Elix Core Team with Component Kitchen serving as a host
organization for the project.

Much of what Jan and I have written about on this blog up to this point has
led to the creation of Elix. Rather than restating what we've said in the
past, we'd like to provide some getting-started tips and invite members
of the web application development community to contribute to Elix. Elix
is just getting off the ground, but there is enough in place to serve as
examples and self-documenting guides for helping us continue to make progress.

The [Elix](/content/elix/index.html) site is a great place to
start as well as to return to for architectural design overviews and
elements/mixins documentation. Also, Jan and I have spoken extensively
about Elix, starting with an
[episode discussing the Gold Standard](http://thewebplatformpodcast.com/126-gold-standard-checklist-for-web-components)
and following up with a
[discussion about the Elix project](http://thewebplatformpodcast.com/129-elix-project)
on [The Web Platform Podcast](http://thewebplatformpodcast.com/)
earlier this year.

Jan also gave a [great presentation](https://youtu.be/3Xq0IrFbZGg)
at the
[Web Components Remote Conf](https://wcremoteconf.com/)
which we highly encourage you to watch.

While we are looking forward to working with experienced industry partners,
Elix is also a great open source project for those, such as university
students, looking to gain their initial experience in web development work,
and we extend a particular welcome to these contributors.

### Why contribute to the Elix project?

1. Web application and front-end development is a vibrant area of
    software engineering

2. Web Components, as they become pervasively supported on the major
    browsers, are a smart architectural approach for building web
    applications, especially alongside popular frameworks such as React

3. Therefore, this is a great time to invest in building knowledge and
    expertise in this area

4. Elix is just getting off the ground, so it's also a great way to begin
    building and extending expertise in Web Components, especially given
    Elix's focus on native JavaScript with a minimal toolchain

5. With limited early contributors, you can, over time, establish some name
    recognition in what we hope will become an important industry open source
    project

### Ways to get started:

1. Simply reading the documentation and studying, in general, the ideas
    behind Web Components, progressive web applications, and web application
    frameworks

2. Reviewing and extending the
    [Elix documentation](/content/elix/index.html)
3. Building unit tests

4. Building sample/demo progressive web applications that make use of Elix elements

5. Working on existing/new
    [elements](/content/elix/elements/index.html)
    and [mixins](/content/elix/mixins/index.html)

Any level of involvement is welcome, and you may find that spending even
only an hour a day will soon lead to deep understanding and the ability to
make significant contributions to the project.

Take a look at the links, read about Web Components, frameworks such as
[React](https://facebook.github.io/react/), and general
[progressive web application](https://developers.google.com/web/ilt/pwa/)
information. You can clone the
[Elix GitHub project](https://github.com/elix/elix), read the
[Elix core team meeting notes](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_3KUXczQ13ATGhZWTRkb0hPWEk?usp=sharing),
and gear yourself up for involvement. Follow the Elix project on Twitter at
[@ElixElements](https://twitter.com/ElixElements).