Contributing
Stratos is an open project and welcomes contributions. These guidelines are provided to help you understand how the project works and to make contributing smooth and fun for everybody involved.
There are two main forms of contribution: reporting issues and performing code changes.
Reporting Issues
If you find a problem with Stratos, report it using GitHub issues.
Before reporting a new issue, please take a moment to check whether it has already been reported here. If this is the case, please:
- Read all the comments to confirm that it's the same issue you're having.
- Refrain from adding "same thing here" or "+1" comments. Just hit the "subscribe" button to get notifications for this issue.
- Add a comment only if you can provide helpful information that has not been provided in the discussion yet.
When creating a new issue, make sure you include:
- As much detail as possible about your setup/environment
- Steps to reproduce the issue/bug
- What you expected to happen
- What happened instead
This information will help to determine the cause and prepare a fix as fast as possible.
Code Changes
Code contributions come in various forms and sizes, from simple bug fixes to implementation of new features. Before making any non-trivial change, get in touch with the Stratos developers first. This can prevent wasted effort later.
To send your code change, use GitHub pull requests. The workflow is as follows:
Fork the project.
Create a branch based on
master.Implement your change, including tests and documentation.
Run tests to make sure your change didn't break anything.
Publish the branch and create a pull request.
Stratos developers will review your change and possibly point out issues. Adapt the code under their guidance until all issues are resolved.
Finally, the pull request will get merged or rejected.
See also GitHub's guide on contributing.
If you want to do multiple unrelated changes, use separate branches and pull requests.
Commits
Each commit in the pull request should do only one thing, which is clearly described by its commit message. Especially avoid mixing formatting changes and functional changes into one commit. When writing commit messages, adhere to widely used conventions.
When the commit fixes a bug, put a message in the body of the commit message pointing to the number of the issue (e.g. "Fixes #123").
Pull requests and branches
All work happens in branches. The master branch is only used as the target for pull requests.
During code review you often need to update pull requests. Usually you do that by pushing additional commits.
In some cases where the commit history of a pull request gets too cumbersome to review or you need bigger changes in the way you approach a problem which needs changing of commits you already did it's more practical to create a new pull request. This new pull request often will contain squashed versions of the previous pull request. Use that to clarify the changes contained in a pull request and to make review easier.
When you replace a pull request by another one, add a message in the description of the new pull request on GitHub referencing the pull request it replaces (e.g. "Supersedes #123").
Never force push commits. This changes history, can lead to data loss, and causes trouble for people who have checked out the changes which are overwritten by a force push. Don't waste time with thinking about if the force push in this one particular case would be ok, just don't do it.
Check for assigned people
We use Github Issues for submitting known issues (e.g. bugs, features, etc.). Some issues will have someone assigned, meaning that there's already someone that takes responsibility for fixing the issue. This is not done to discourage contributions, rather to not step in the work that has already been done by the assignee. If you want to work on a known issue with someone already assigned to it, please contact the assignee first (e.g. by mentioning the assignee in a new comment on the specific issue). This way you can contribute with ideas, or even with code if the assignee decides that you can step in.
If you plan to work on a non assigned issue, please add a comment on the issue to prevent duplicated work.
Sign your work
The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for the change. Your signature certifies that you wrote the change or otherwise have the right to pass it on as an open-source change. The rules are pretty simple: if you can certify the below (from developercertificate.org):
Then you just add a line to each git commit message:
Use your real name (sorry, no pseudonyms or anonymous contributions.)
If you set your user.name and user.email git configs, you can sign your
commit automatically with git commit -s.