The creators of a visualization tool to track disease movements need programmers to handle high-priority problems Credit: Da Kuk / Getty Images Nextstrain, an open source project to provide real-time tracking information about the evolution of pathogens, has put out a call for JavaScript developers to help build out its interactive web application, Auspice, as part of its COVID-19 efforts. Auspice is an interactive explorer for phylodynamic and phylogenomic data—data sets that show the evolution of a given pathogen, plus other behaviors like its geographic movement. Right now the project has been devoting a major share of its resources to help track COVID-19. You can see an example of Auspice visualization for COVID-19, including an interactive map of disease transmission over time. In a GitHub issue detailing the need for help, Auspice’s developers described how it publishes weekly situation reports using narratives on the spread of COVID-19, which are broken into sections by world region. However, each narrative can currently use only one dataset as a source, so Nextstrain is looking for developers who can help expand how narratives use datasets. Developers with JavaScript skills can also donate their skills to other high-priority issues in Auspice, such as the need for dataset-loading tests, a Firefox rendering bug, and many others. Prospective contributors should read up on how to contribute to the project before diving in. JavaScriptSoftware DevelopmentOpen Source