docs: add section for package maintainers and contributors

We really need to make it easier for people unfamiliar with our build
processes but asked to investigate and fix some bugs to get up and
running as fast as possible. They don't need to try to learn all the
cosa intricacies and concepts.

Let's have an all-in-one section that, yes, overlaps with other
sections, but presents in a condensed way the minimum someone needs to
know to fix bugs.

Obviously, this should be shared more with fedora-bootc documentation
in the future. The ergonomics are not quite there yet however (related
discussions in containers/podman-bootc#28 and
https://gitlab.com/fedora/bootc/tracker/-/issues/2).

docs/working.md

@@ -309,3 +309,110 @@ spec:
 ```
 
 Then `oc rsh pods/cosa` and you should be able to `ls -al /dev/kvm` - and `cosa build` etc!
+
+## I'm a contributor investigating a CoreOS bug. How can I test my fixes?
+
+If you're a contributor unfamiliar with how CoreOS is built or provisioned and
+you're looking at fixing a bug in an RPM component (thank you!), here's the
+minimum you need to know to get started debugging and iterating on CoreOS. This
+requires access to podman and /dev/kvm.
+
+1. First, download the latest QEMU CoreOS image. If you're handling a bug
+   report from someone on the CoreOS team, they may have asked you to download a
+   specific image. Otherwise, for Fedora, you can get the latest from
+   https://fedoraproject.org/coreos/download or by using coreos-installer:
+
+   ```bash
+   # as privileged
+   podman run --privileged --rm -v .:/srv -w /srv quay.io/coreos/coreos-installer:release \
+       download --decompress -p qemu -f qcow2.xz
+   # as unprivileged, but relabeling the working directory
+   podman run --rm -v .:/srv:z -w /srv quay.io/coreos/coreos-installer:release \
+       download --decompress -p qemu -f qcow2.xz
+   ```
+
+   For RHCOS, you can get an image from the OpenShift mirrors at
+   https://mirror.openshift.com/pub/openshift-v4/x86_64/dependencies/rhcos/.
+   If you are a Red Hat employee, you can also access development builds not yet
+   available on the mirrors from the RHCOS release browser.
+
+2. Run the VM:
+
+   ```bash
+   # as privileged
+   podman run --privileged --rm -ti -v .:/srv quay.io/coreos-assembler/coreos-assembler \
+       run --bind-ro /srv,/var/srv fedora-coreos-40.20240519.3.0-qemu.x86_64.qcow2
+   # as unprivileged, but relabeling the working directory and passing /dev/kvm
+   podman run --rm -ti -v .:/srv:z --device /dev/kvm quay.io/coreos-assembler/coreos-assembler \
+       run --bind-ro /srv,/var/srv fedora-coreos-40.20240519.3.0-qemu.x86_64.qcow2
+   ```
+
+   This will mount the working directory at /srv as read-only in the VM so that you
+   can more easily pass data into it.
+
+3. Modifying the OS:
+
+   Once you're in the VM, you can test your changes multiple ways.
+
+   (1) One universal way is to build a custom RPM, and put it in the mounted
+   directory, then use `rpm-ostree override replace /srv/path/to/my.rpm`. You
+   can then either reboot, or `rpm-ostree apply-live` to have the change apply
+   immediately.
+
+   (2) Alternatively, you can do `rpm-ostree usroverlay` to make the rootfs writable. Then
+   you can do e.g. `rpm -Uvh /srv/my.rpm` for example as you would on a traditional system.
+   Or at this point, you can directly rsync over the output from your local
+   project build. E.g. assuming your build system uses a Makefile and it
+   supports `DESTDIR=`, on your host, you can do
+   `make install DESTDIR=/path/to/mounted/dir/subdir`, and in the VM, `rsync -av /srv/subdir/ /`.
+
+   (3) Another [newer approach](https://containers.github.io/bootable/) is to build
+   a derived container image with your changes. For example, to customize the rawhide image,
+   you can build a Containerfile like:
+
+   ```Dockerfile
+   FROM quay.io/fedora/fedora-coreos:rawhide
+   # using a locally built RPM
+   COPY my.rpm /
+   RUN dnf install /my.rpm && dnf clean all
+   # or using project output directly from a `make install DESTDIR=installtree/
+   COPY installtree/ /tmp
+   RUN rsync /tmp/ / && rm -rf /tmp
+   ```
+
+   You can build this image, then copy it to the VM as an OCI archive:
+
+   ```
+   podman build -t localhost/my-image .
+   skopeo copy containers-storage:localhost/my-image oci-archive:/path/to/mounted/dir/my.ociarchive
+   ```
+
+   And then on the VM:
+
+   ```
+   rpm-ostree rebase ostree-unverified-image:oci-archive:/srv/my.ociarchive
+   ```
+
+   (4) That said, sometimes you just have to build FCOS/RHCOS from scratch. In that case, follow
+   the steps in https://coreos.github.io/coreos-assembler/building-fcos/ and see
+   the other sections on this page for ways to modify inputs (e.g. custom RPMs or rootfs content).
+   But roughly, the flow looks something like this:
+
+   ```bash
+   # for building FCOS
+   cosa init https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-config
+   # for building SCOS
+   cosa init --variant c9s https://github.com/openshift/os
+   # copy any modifications in e.g. the overrides/rpm directory
+   cp /path/to/my.rpm overrides/rpm/
+   # or overrides/rootfs directory
+   (cd /path/to/my/project && make install DESTDIR=/path/to/overrides/rootfs)
+   # now we're ready to build
+   cosa fetch && cosa build
+   # to run the freshly built image
+   cosa run
+   # to build the live ISO
+   cosa buildextend-metal && cosa buildextend-live --fast
+   # to run the live ISO
+   cosa run -p qemu-iso
+   ```