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How to Contribute Code

Scott Goci edited this page Aug 18, 2015 · 9 revisions

Introduction

Since Kandan is a fully open-source app, we would appreciate if you dive in and start adding features, fixing bugs, and cleaning up the code.

If you’re going to contribute code then we need you to sign our Contributor License Agreement (hereafter referred to as CLA) which is modeled after the one that NodeJS uses.

A CLA is a legal document in which you state you are entitled to contribute the code/documentation/translation to the project you’re contributing to and are willing to have it used in distributions and derivative works. This means that should there be any kind of legal issue in the future as to the origins and ownership of any particular piece of code, then that project has the necessary forms on file from the contributor(s) saying they were permitted to make this contribution.

The CLA also ensures that once you have provided a contribution, you cannot try to withdraw permission for its use at a later date. People and companies can therefore use that software, confident that they will not be asked to stop using pieces of the code at a later date.

How to contribute

Third-party patches are essential for keeping Kandan great. We simply can't access the huge number of platforms and myriad configurations for running Kandan. We want to keep it as easy as possible to contribute changes that get things working in your environment. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can have a chance of keeping on top of things.

  • Make sure you have a GitHub Account
  • Submit a ticket for your issue, assuming one does not already exist.
    • Clearly describe the issue including steps to reproduce when it is a bug.
    • Make sure you fill in the earliest version that you know has the issue.
  • Fork the repository on GitHub

Making Changes

  • Get the latest code from Github
    • Fork the Main Kandan repository.
    • Clone your fork of the Kandan repository.
  • Add a remote for the main Kandan repo
    • To make things easier to integrate and to keep your fork up to date then you need to add the main Kandan repo as a remote reference.
    • git remote add upstream https://github.com/kandanapp/kandan.git
    • Then, when you need to pull the latest from the main Kandan repo, you just fetch and merge the MASTER branch:
    • git fetch upstream
    • git merge upstream/master
    • You can also use git pull upstream master if you want it all in one step.
  • Make a branch for your changes
    • Create a branch from where you want to base your work.
    • Generally you'll want to branch from MASTER
    • Please use the naming convention "kandan-[issue-num]" for your branch name to help us keep track of what your patch actually fixes
  • Push your code and make a pull request
  • Sign the Contributor License Agreement
  • One pull request per issue. Do NOT try and fix multiple issues with a single pull request.
  • Please make your commit messages and pull requests informative. i.e. moved version string to git_revision Fixes #123. By using the Fixes/Fixed #Issue-Number in the commit message it will allow for closing of issues once the pull request is merged. For more information please read this.
  • Push your changes to your fork of the repository.
  • git push origin kandan-[issue-num]
  • Submit a pull request to the Kandan main repository.

At this point you're waiting on us. We like to at least comment on, if not accept, pull requests within three business days (and, typically, one business day). We may suggest some changes or improvements or alternatives.

Additional Resources

Additional Notes on CLA and Pull Requests

When we have multiple PRs for the same issue. We will choose the best or if equal the first. In the event the PR requestor has not signed the CLA, we'll give you at least 48 hours to sign and if we don't hear back we'll take the PR from someone who has.