CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

Contributing to QPixel follows broadly the same process as any other Codidact project.

What needs doing?

• Bugs are reported here on GitHub. Have a look at the open issues tagged type: bug to find something that needs fixing.
• Any other development work will be listed in the TODO list in the wiki.

Once you've picked what you're going to work on, please leave a comment on the issue to indicate you're planning to work on it; this helps us reduce wasted effort. If there's not already an issue for the feature you want to work on, please create one. If you need time to work on an issue, that's absolutely fine, but please keep us updated with comments on the issue - if we don't hear from you for a few weeks, we may assume you've given up working on that issue and give it to someone else.

What's the workflow?

• First, you need an issue to work under. Look at the current TODO list to find something to work on; follow the instructions there to see what's available, and create an issue once you know what you're going to work on.
• Second, you can make your changes. If you have write access to the repository, create a topic branch (please use the format art/40/add-bells-and-whistles, i.e. username/issue-number/brief-description) and make your changes there; if not, fork the repository and work in your fork.
• Once you've made your changes, submit a pull request targeting the develop branch.

Keep in mind that status checks are required to pass and at least one approving review is required from the team before any pull request can be merged. If status checks don't pass, we won't be able to merge - there are no exceptions, so please fix the failures and commit again. You can always mark your pull request as [WIP] (for "Work In Progress") while you're still trying to make it work.

What standards are there?

We have code style and standards documents for each applicable language. Please make sure you follow these if possible; if there's a good reason why not, please document it in your code, add a linter exception, and let us know why in your pull request. Here they are:

• Code standards: CSS
• Code standards: CSS naming
• Code standards: HTML
• Code standards: JS
• There is a .rubocop.yml file provided in the project and rubocop is included in the bundle; please run bundle exec rubocop for Ruby style checking.

When writing CSS, keep in mind that our design framework, Co-Design is available in QPixel, and should be used where possible. Avoid writing custom CSS if you can; favour using components and atomic classes from Co-Design.

We also have some guidelines for commit messages. Again, please follow these where possible, as they help us to keep a cohesive commit history and see how the project has developed.