Contributions

Choosing an Issue

All of our code changes are made against a GitHub issue. If you're new to the project, go to Issues and search for good first issues label: "good first issue".

We also maintain a priority issue board, available here or under the Projects tab > App Repo Management > Issue Tracker.

Issue assignments are not required in order to contribute. If you see an open issue that no one's opened a PR against, it's all yours! Feel free to make some edits, then open a PR, as described below.

Contributing

PolicyEngine follows the industry standard open-source contributions Git workflow:

• Add PolicyEngine as an "upstream" source by running git remote add upstream https://github.com/PolicyEngine/policyengine-app.git
• Keep your fork's "master" branch in sync with the original repo by pulling the original repo's code at times by running git pull upstream master, then git push origin master to sync the code to your local repo
• Create branches on your fork off of your master or main branch. Periodically, if you're working on something for a while, you might also run git rebase master within your feature branch to sync your code with any new changes.
• When you're done with the feature or bug fix, open the PR from your branch to the live master branch.

If you prefer using a more visual editor, you can add the VS Code GitHub Pull Requests extension and use the Start Working on This Issue feature, which will automate that process. This ensures that we don't run into merge conflicts down the road.

Testing

You've finished your contribution, but now what?

We use ESLint and Prettier to lint our codebase. Before opening a pull request, be sure to run

make format

This will automatically lint your code for you. Linting is also checked in the PR pre-flight, preventing unlinted code from being merged.

To test your changes against our series of automated tests, run

make test

We also recommend, but do not yet require, that you add tests for any new features or bug-fixes you add, so we can gradually build up the code coverage. We use Jest and the React Testing Library. You can run your tests locally with make test and they will be run again in the PR pre-flight.

Opening a Pull Request

Now you've finished your contribution! Please open a pull request (PR) from your fork against the master branch. At times, it may take some time for the team to review your PR, especially for larger contributions, so please be patient--we will be sure to get to it.

In the first line of your PR, please make sure to include the following:

Fixes {issue_number}

For example:

Fixes #0

This makes it much easier for us to maintain and prune our issue board.

Please try to be detailed in your PRs about the changes you made and why you made them. You may find yourself looking back at them for reference in the future, or needing insight about someone else's changes. We've included a template, but please feel free to add as much as you can. Save yourself a conversation and write it all in the PR!

Here are some best practices for using Git.

When you're ready for review, switch the PR from Draft to Ready for review and add a contributor as a reviewer.