GSoC 2026 — Guidance for Overlay Layer API Project

[Shivam_Raj]

Hello!

I am a beginner contributor interested in the GSoC 2026 project “Overlay Layer API for Interactive Backends.”

I have experience contributing to open source and would like guidance on how to start preparing for this project. Specifically, I would appreciate recommendations on relevant issues to work on, skills to focus on, and how to get involved with Matplotlib development.

Thank you for your time and guidance.

[story645]

hi, please answer the following:

GSoC Introduction Template

Hi folks! Thanks for your interest in GSoC and wanting to improve Matplotlib. For us to offer you constructive feedback or guidance on which issues/pull requests/parts of the code base are a good place for you to start, please provide the following information: What do you use Matplotlib for? What sorts of visualizations do you make? Any specific domain? for example: sports, climate science, high energy physics, etc. Are you interested in any part of the Matplotlib API specifically? for exam…