Efficient, low-cost, and durable earth-abundant electrocatalysts play an important role for the development of electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). In this study, a general and facile one-pot strategy was developed for the synthesis of nitrogen doped holey carbon with MoS2-MoP nanosheets (MoS2-MoP-CNS) for HER in alkaline media. The obtained electrocatalyst exhibited lower overpotential (93 mV vs. RHE) relative to MoP-CNS (163 mV) and MoS2-CNS (335 mV) is required to deliver the current density of 10 mA cm(-2) in the basic electrolyte. The outstanding electrocatalytic performance of MoS2-MoP-CNS can be attributed to its specific layered structure with abundant holes, which exposes more active sites. Moreover, the peculiar nitrogen doped carbon layers improved conductivity and avoided aggregation of catalysts. Thus, the presented approach for the synthesis of effective catalyst for HER in alkaline medium can easily be extended and used as a general approach for the development of large-scale and low-cost electrocatalysts. (C) 2018 The Electrochemical Society.