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CONTRIBUTING.md

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How to contribute

Third-party patches are essential for keeping Puppet great. We simply can't access the huge number of platforms and myriad configurations for running Puppet. We want to keep it as easy as possible to contribute changes that get things working in your environment. There are a few guidelines that we need contributors to follow so that we can have a chance of keeping on top of things.

Puppet Core vs Modules

New functionality is typically directed toward modules to provide a slimmer Puppet Core, reducing its surface area, and to allow greater freedom for module maintainers to ship releases at their own cadence, rather than being held to the cadence of Puppet releases. With Puppet 4's "all in one" packaging, a list of modules at specific versions will be packaged with the core so that popular types and providers will still be available as part of the "out of the box" experience.

Generally, new types and new OS-specific providers for existing types should be added in modules. Exceptions would be things like new cross-OS providers and updates to existing core types.

If you are unsure of whether your contribution should be implemented as a module or part of Puppet Core, you may visit #puppet-dev on slack, or ask on the puppet-dev mailing list for advice.

Getting Started

  • Make sure you have a GitHub account.
  • (Optional) Submit a GitHub Issue if one does not already exist.
    • Clearly describe the issue including steps to reproduce when it is a bug.
    • Make sure you fill in the earliest version that you know has the issue.
  • Fork the repository on GitHub.

Making Changes

  • Create a topic branch from where you want to base your work.

    • For new and active repositories, this is usually the main branch, but for older or less active repos, the default branch may still be named master.
    • Only target branches other than the default if you are certain your fix must be on that branch.
    • To quickly create a topic branch based on the default branch, run git checkout -b fix/main/my_contribution main (or master for older repos). Please avoid working directly on the default branch.

  • Make commits of atomic units.

    • Your commit message should clearly describe how the behavior is changing and why.
    • Commit messages that say "fixes bug" or are empty will be rejected.
    • If code changes cause tests to fail, then the tests should be updated in the same commit as the code changes.
    • Squash intermediate commits.
    • Do not create merge commits in your pull request. Instead rebase your pull request. For example, if your feature branch tracks upstream/main, then run git rebase $(git merge-base HEAD upstream/main) --onto upstream/main and force push to your remote git push --force origin HEAD.

  • Make commits of logical units.

    • Significant whitespace-only changes should be made in a single commit, not comingled with non-whitespace changes.
    • For significant changes, break down your work in separate commits to make it easier to review.
    • If your pull request contains multiple commits, then tests should pass at each stage. To confirm, assuming your feature branch tracks upstream/main, then run git rebase -i $(git merge-base HEAD upstream/main) --exec 'bundle exec rake <task>'

  • Check for unnecessary whitespace with git diff --check before committing.

  • Make sure your commit messages are in the proper format. We use the 50/72 rule in commit messages.

        Make the example in CONTRIBUTING imperative and concrete

    Without this patch applied the example commit message in the CONTRIBUTING
    document is not a concrete example. This is a problem because the
    contributor is left to imagine what the commit message should look like
    based on a description rather than an example. This patch fixes the
    problem by making the example concrete and imperative.

    The first line is a real-life imperative statement. The body describes
    the behavior without the patch, why this is a problem, and how the
    patch fixes the problem when applied.

  • Make sure you have added the necessary tests for your changes.

  • For details on how to run tests, please see the quickstart guide

Submitting Changes

  • Push your changes to a topic branch in your fork of the repository.
  • Submit a pull request to the repository in the puppetlabs organization.
    • Sign the CLA when prompted to via a PR comment.
  • If a GitHub Issues exists link to it to indicate that your PR addresses this issue.
  • After feedback has been given we expect responses within two weeks. After two weeks we may close the pull request if it isn't showing any activity.

Revert Policy

By running tests in advance and by engaging with peer review for prospective changes, your contributions have a high probability of becoming long lived parts of the the project. After being merged, the code will run through a series of testing pipelines on a large number of operating system environments. These pipelines can reveal incompatibilities that are difficult to detect in advance.

If the code change results in a test failure, we will make our best effort to correct the error. If a fix cannot be determined and committed within 24 hours of its discovery, the commit(s) responsible may be reverted, at the discretion of the committer and Puppet maintainers. This action would be taken to help maintain passing states in our testing pipelines.

The original contributor will be notified of the revert in a comment the PR or issue associated with the change. A reference to the test(s) and operating system(s) that failed as a result of the code change will also be added to the comment. This test(s) should be used to check future submissions of the code to ensure the issue has been resolved.

Summary

  • Changes resulting in test pipeline failures will be reverted if they cannot be resolved within one business day.

Additional Resources