Contributing to EdgeX Foundry

The following is a set of guidelines for contributing to EdgeX Foundry and its libraries, which are hosted in the EdgeX Foundry Organization on GitHub.

This project adheres to the Contributor Covenant 1.2. By participating, you are expected to uphold this code.

Reporting issues

Reporting issues is a great way to contribute to the project. We always appreciate a well-written, thorough bug reports.

Prior to raising a new issue, check out our issue list to determine whether it already include the problem you are facing.

A good bug report shouldn't leave others needing to chase you up for more information. Please try to be as detailed as possible. The following questions might serve as a template for writing a detailed reports:

• What were you trying to achieve?
• What are the expected results?
• What are the received results?
• What are the steps to reproduce the issue?
• In what environment did you encounter the issue?

Pull requests

Good pull requests (e.g. patches, improvements, new features) are a fantastic help. They should remain focused in scope and avoid containing unrelated commits.

Please ask first before embarking any significant pull request (e.g. implementing new features, refactoring code etc.), otherwise you risk spending a lot of time working on something that the maintainers might not want to merge into the project.

Please adhere to the coding conventions used throughout the project. If in doubt, consult the Effective Go style guide.

Adhering to the following process is the best way to get your work included in the project:

1. Fork the project, clone your fork, and configure the remotes:

   # Clone your fork of the repo into the current directory
   git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/edgex-go.git
   
   # Navigate to the newly cloned directory
   cd edgex-go
   
   # Assign the original repo to a remote called "upstream"
   git remote add upstream https://github.com/edgexfoundry/edgex-go.git

2. If you cloned a while ago, get the latest changes from upstream:

   git checkout master
   git pull --rebase upstream master

3. Create a new topic branch from master using the naming convention EF-[issue-number] to help us keep track of your contribution scope:

   git checkout -b EF-[issue-number]

4. Commit your changes in logical chunks. When you are ready to commit, make sure to write a Good Commit Message™. Consult the Erlang's contributing guide if you're not sure what constitutes a Good Commit Message™. Use interactive rebase to group your commits into logical units of working before making them public.

   Note that every commit you make must be signed. By signing off your work you indicate that you are accepting the Developer Certificate of Origin.

   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.

5. Locally merge (or rebase) the upstream development branch into your topic branch:

   git pull --rebase upstream master

6. Push your topic branch up to your fork:

   git push origin EF-[issue-number]

7. Open a Pull Request with a clear title and detailed description.