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The branch where development work takes place is the master.

Set Up Your Git Environment (for first-time contributors)

Make sure you have your basic Git environment set up.

Choose an Issue

Find a bug or feature you like; nail down your JIRA ticket.  If necessary, file it in JIRA.

Design Your Solution

If you are developing a feature, or you are working on a bug that involves an interface change, you'll need to go through the design phase:

Document your design

If you're working on a feature or a complex bug, document it in the space used for project designs on Confluence.  Create a design document describing your design.  See this example.   Some bugs are small enough that they don't need documenting.  If you are not sure, ask on the development forum

Get comments on your design

Initiate a discussion of your idea or bug fix by starting a topic for it on the PBS Pro development forum:

    • Make sure you start your discussion in the Developers category in the forum
    • When you start your topic, use a summary of the feature or bug for your topic title.  For example: Server Periodic Hook
    • In the forum, add a pointer to your design page

After you've started your topic, add an HTML link in your design page on Confluence that points to the discussion topic in the forum

Get review comments from community members about your bug fix or design.  Make sure review comments are solicited and posted in the development forum, and not on the wiki.  All discussion of your design and code should take place on the development forum.

Get approval for your design

For features or complex bugs, get sign-off of the high-level design approach from two people: one maintainer and one other contributor (who can be a maintainer).  If you took a complex feature and broke it down into sub-tasks, and you are working on a sub-task, you need two sign-offs on the design for your sub-task.  Make sure that all approvals are posted in the development forum, not on the wiki.

Make finding information easy

Add a link in the design page containing the EDD that points to the discussion, and vice versa. 

Also add a link from the EDD to the pull request and vice versa.

Develop Your Code and Tests

Update your fork

Update your (forked & locally cloned) repository's master branch with the golden repository's master (IMPORTANT: Your fork's master branch should not be touched with any of your development changes. It should just reflect the golden repository's master, exactly).

git checkout master

git pull upstream master

Create your dev branch

Create a development branch for the ticket that you would like to work on and name it with the JIRA ID of the ticket:

git checkout -b <JIRA ID>

Check the development checklist

Look at the checklist for developing code. 

Write your code and tests

We recommend developing your code and your tests in parallel.  Your PTL tests should provide good coverage of the requirements and your design.

Put license text in headers for code and tests

If you create new source or test files, make sure that this license text is in the header for all code and test files.

Use the commit-push cycle to perfect your code

  • Commit changes in the updated file to your branch with a good commit messageMake your commit message relevant and concise, so that it will be helpful to you later:

git add <updated file>

git commit -m "<Commit message>"

Tip: Commit often, perfect later.

  • Push the development branch to your fork.  By convention,  'origin' points to your forked repository on GitHub:

git push origin <JIRA ID>

  • Repeat the above steps until you are satisfied with your code change.

Prepare for creating a pull request

  • Fetch changes made to the golden repository by other contributors.  By convention, 'upstream' points to the golden repository on GitHub:

git fetch upstream

  • Rebase your development branch with new changes from the golden repository's master. 'upstream/master' is the remote tracking branch for the golden repository's (upstream's) master branch, on your local machine:

git checkout <JIRA ID>

git rebase upstream/master

  • If there are conflicts, Git will throw an error message informing you so and ask you to resolve it before continuing the rebase.  Resolve conflicts the same way you resolve an ordinary merge conflict in Git. Here's a way to resolve conflicts from the command line.  Then, just continue the rebase operation:

git rebase --continue

  • If the conflict is complex or problematic, you can abort the current rebase operation instead of continuing, and come back to it later:

git rebase --abort

  • After the rebase is complete, you might want to clean up your branch's commit history:
  • Squash all your commits into ONE SINGLE COMMIT.

git checkout <JIRA ID>

git rebase -i --fork-point master

  • Write a meaningful commit message for your commit while doing the squash above. You can also use git commit --amend or rebase if you'd rather do it separately.
  • Now, and this is MANDATORY, sign your commit with the GPG key you configured earlier in the setup stage.

    git commit -S --amend

    If you would rather not have to remember this step, you might choose to develop the habit of signing all your commits at all times. If you use Git v2.0+, you can also setup automatic signing.

  • Finally, push the polished branch to your fork. Because you did a git rebase, you'll need to do a force push.
git push -f origin <JIRA ID>

Create a Pull Request

Your code changes are good to go! Go ahead and create a pull request.  This allows other contributors to review your changes and provide comments.  Link your issue to your pull request.

Don't forget about your pull request after you create it – inactive pull requests will be closed without warning.

Get Approval for Your Code and Tests

Your code is ready to be merged into the golden repository when the following are true:

    • The code adheres to our coding standards
    • You have approval from two people: one maintainer and one other contributor (who can be a maintainer); approvals for code and tests happen on GitHub inside pull requests, not the wiki

Get Changes Reviewed, and Check Them In

Address review comments from other contributors

Address review comments on your code, making changes to your development branch as necessary

    • Commit new changes to the same development branch on your local machine
    • Push changes to your fork, this will automatically update your pull request on Github

Make reviewing easier

To help reviewers see incremental diffs during the code review process, we recommend that you don't squash again until the code review process is complete

Squash your commits into one commit

Once you get sign-offs (at least two) on your changes, if there are multiple commits in your pull request, please squash all your change commits into a single, signed commit again.

Tell maintainers that your changes are ready to merge

Add a comment on your pull request informing the maintainers that your changes are ready to be merged into the golden repository.

Once the maintainers review the pull request, they will merge it in. Congratulations on becoming a contributor to PBS Pro!

Clean Up

  • Housekeeping: we strongly recommend that you delete the development branch from your forked and cloned repos now.

git checkout master

git push origin --delete <JIRA ID> (deletes <JIRA ID> from the fork)

git branch -D <JIRA ID> (deletes <JIRA ID> from local clone)

Update Your Issue

Update the issue on which you were working.





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