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Contributing

Rob Kelly edited this page Apr 22, 2019 · 29 revisions

Contributing to pyGSTi

The pyGSTi project uses a simple & flexible branching git workflow. Members of the pyGSTio group should use this document as a guide to making contributions to the pyGSTi codebase.

These guidelines do not apply to contributors outside of the pyGSTio group. If you're an external contributor to pyGSTi, please refer to the general contributor guidelines.

Contents

Workflow

Minor Patches

Documentation

Conventions

Workflow

This section is a step-by-step guide to contributing code to the pyGSTi project. You don't need to follow these steps to make a contribution to pyGSTi, but if you're not sure how to use the guidelines and conventions of the project, you might want to check the relevant heading in this section.

Setting Up a Development Environment

TODO

Clone the pyGSTi Repository

TODO

Install Development Dependencies

TODO

Write Your Code

TODO

Running Tests

TODO

Commit Your Changes

TODO

Update Your Branch

TODO

Submit a Pull Request

TODO

Get some Feedback

TODO

Minor Patches

For small changes to the pyGSTi codebase, internal contributors are free to push their commits directly to develop instead of making a pull request for review. The purpose of code reviews and pull requests is to make sure that another pyGSTi developer is aware of what you're adding to the codebase, so as a rule-of-thumb: if someone would want to know about what you're adding, make a pull request!

Here are a few examples of changes that probably don't need a PR:

  • Renaming local symbols
  • Fixing a typo
  • Adding or editing a docstring with minor information

Likewise, here are a couple of changes that would definitely need a PR:

  • Refactoring something in a module or class namespace
  • Adding or removing a feature
  • Fixing a bug
  • Making extensive changes to documentation across many units
  • Adding a missing test case or fixing a broken test

Documentation

We rely on our contributors to keep our documentation correct, constistent, usable, and up-to-date. If you have additions or corrections to add to our project's documentation, we have a couple of resources available to you.

Issues relating to documentation should be tagged with the label: docs label in the issue tracker.

Code & API Documentation

When possible, pull requests that add features should include the documentation for those features, and any revisions to a documented unit should revise documentation accordingly.

If a function, class, or module has an outdated docstring, please fix it and push the revised documentation directly to develop. The only exceptions to this are patches adding or fixing docstrings for a large number of units, which should be accompanied by a pull request -- use your judgement.

User Guides, Examples, & Tutorials

pyGSTi ships with a number of interactive tutorials and examples in the form of Jupyter notebooks found in the jupyter_notebooks directory.

Developers are not expected to add tutorials or examples when adding features, but may do so if they wish.

Developer Wiki

(YOU ARE HERE)

The project developer wiki is a repository of general information about pyGSTi. It's sort of a catch-all for documentation not covered anywhere else.

When adding new wiki pages or editing existing documentation, let other developers know by creating a new issue in the issue tracker and assigning yourself.

If you are creating a new major section for the wiki, you should manually add it to the navigation menu.

Publications

TODO

Conventions

This section details a few of the common development conventions followed by pyGSTi developers. These are not absolute requirements for contributing, but in some rare cases, contributions to the codebase may be temporarily rejected for breaking from conventions. We really appreciate contributors making an effort to follow these conventions and keep our codebase clean, clear, and maintainable.

Repository

TODO

Style

TODO

Code Style

TODO

Docstring Style

TODO

Organization

TODO

Testing

TODO

Clone this wiki locally