First Day in a New Project - What to Ask and How to Get Started

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Starting a new project can be exciting but also overwhelming. To save yourself headaches later, it’s crucial to ask the right questions from day one.

Here’s my checklist for the first day in any new codebase or team:

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1. Access and permissions

• Who can give me access to repositories, servers, dashboards, or other tools?
• Who manages credentials or API keys?
• Are there any specific security policies or VPN requirements?

Pro tip: Don’t spend hours stuck waiting for access - ask early and follow up.

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2. Documentation

• Is there any existing documentation (README, wiki, architecture diagrams)?
• Where do I find onboarding guides or environment setup instructions?
• Are there coding guidelines or style guides?
• How is knowledge shared in the team (Slack channels, meetings, Confluence)?

Documentation is gold - if it doesn’t exist, make notes and encourage the team to start one.

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3. Branching and commit conventions

• What branching strategy do you use? (GitFlow, trunk-based, feature branches?)
• What’s the naming convention for branches? (feature/, bugfix/, hotfix/?)
• How detailed should commit messages be? Any specific format? (e.g., Conventional Commits)
• Are commits squashed before merge or kept separate?

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4. Code reviews and merge requests (MR)

• What’s the process for code reviews?
• How many approvals are required before merging?
• Is there any automatic CI/CD gating the merge?
• How do you handle merge conflicts?
• Are there checklists or templates for MR descriptions?

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5. Development workflow

• How do you run the project locally?
• Are there scripts or tools to automate builds, tests, or deployments?
• How do you handle feature toggles or environment variables?
• What testing strategy do you follow? Unit, integration, e2e?

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Final tips

• Don’t be afraid to ask many questions - better to clarify early than waste time later.
• Take notes and organize them for your own onboarding doc.
• Offer to help improve documentation once you get familiar with the project.
• Connect with teammates - knowing who does what speeds up problem solving.

Starting on the right foot makes a big difference for your productivity and confidence.