I would begin by saying to never be afraid to ask questions but to be sure your questions are structured well and actually worthwhile so you can extract usable info from the answers. Here are some resources to help with that:
This one is long but comprehensive: CatB
There will probably be some overlap between these but that's good, it will show what is most valued in asking questions.
Also a couple stack overflow questions to browse would be these two:
- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/215076/whats-the-best-way-to-become-familiar-with-a-large-codebase
- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/214605/the-best-way-to-familiarize-yourself-with-an-inherited-codebase
And a book if you feel ambitious: Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers
As far as tools I'll include the following:
A formatter to keep code uniform when you are looking at it:
A way to easily toggle the formatter on/off in case the project doesn't use it but you'd still like to:
Some sort of flowchart generator:
This is a great tool for various JS benefits:
[Quokka](paid if possible)](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=WallabyJs.quokka-vscode)
This one goes without saying but GIT is a must! This great book is up to date and free Pro-Git. Also any git extension in the VSCode Marketplace that sounds interesting is worth a look and if you find it useful, ride that tool as long as you can.
Here's some git extensions I love in VSCode:
Taking your own notes is incredibly valuable too! Now that github offers free private repos you could create your own repo and keep your notes there to toss it into something like gitbook or docusaurus for when it comes time to revisit your notes or even share with the team to show them you're valuable enough to bring on full time!