Hi everyone! I’d like to share my experience as an intern on the Servo Project through the Outreachy Program.
Servo is an experimental web browser engine originally developed by Mozilla. It's written in Rust, a systems programming language focused on safety and performance. Servo explores next-generation architecture for rendering engines, leveraging Rust’s memory safety guarantees to improve both security and speed. Today, Servo is a community-driven project under the Linux Foundation, continuing its mission to push the boundaries of browser technology.
I’ve been fortunate to be selected as an intern for the project titled “Improve code linting in Servo’s CI.” My work focuses on improving the GitHub Actions workflows and enhancing mach, Servo’s command-line tool that streamlines tasks like building, testing, and linting the project.
The goal of the project
The primary goal of this project is to improve the overall developer experience, especially for contributors using GitHub and the mach CLI. By streamlining linting feedback and automating common tasks, the project aims to make contributing to Servo easier, faster, and more reliable.
What excites me the most about this project?
What excites me the most is getting to work so close to the core of how the web works. Browser engines are deeply connected to web standards and specifications, and working with Servo gives me a behind-the-scenes look at how web APIs things we use every day are actually implemented at the rendering engine level. It's been incredibly exciting to peek under the hood and understand how browsers interpret and display the web.
A Quick Look at the Web Ecosystem
Web standards (like those defined by the W3C and WHATWG) describe how the web should work and function from layout and styling to APIs and behaviors. Browser engines like Servo, Firefox’s Gecko, or Chromium’s Blink implement these standards. To ensure they do so correctly, the Web Platform Tests (WPT) project provides a shared set of tests that all browser engines can run. These tests later help to verify that implementations behave consistently across browsers, improving compatibility and reducing fragmentation. Servo integrates these tests to stay aligned with evolving standards.
Gratitude
At the end of this journey, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be part of Outreachy and the Servo Project. I want to thank both of my mentors, Martin Robinson and Mukilan, for their constant guidance and support throughout this internship. I also want to express my appreciation to the Outreachy organizers and the wider community. Special thanks to Outreachy community manager Omotola E. Omotayo for hosting regular check-ins and creating a supportive space for all interns during the program.