FWIW I would encourage you to start by seeing if you can find an answer to your first question.
As a general tip over recent years there has been a growth in "standard" ways that a project can communicate tasks/bugs/issues that are particularly well suited for people to start their involvement with a Free/Open Source project by highlighting ways someone can get involved as new contributor.
I've actually already read the 'getting started with development' pages. I just want to take HN's temperature on how challenging it would be/ the likelihood of that project accepting submissions from a novice.
As a general tip over recent years there has been a growth in "standard" ways that a project can communicate tasks/bugs/issues that are particularly well suited for people to start their involvement with a Free/Open Source project by highlighting ways someone can get involved as new contributor.