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Contributing

When contributing to this repository, please first discuss the change you wish to make via GitHub issues, Discord, or any other method with the owners of this repository before making a change.

Quickstart

These are the most important things to know before contributing (also explained in more detail later in this document):

  • Commit messages must adhere to Conventional Commits.
  • Branch names must be formatted correctly. The format is {category}/GH-{issue number}/{lowercase-description}. Category must match a category used in our Commitlint config. You can also use NO-ISSUE instead of a GitHub issue number.
  • We use Checkstyle in our build workflow to validate coding style. It is recommended to import the config/checkstyle/checkstyle.xml or config/intellij-code-style.xml file into your IDE, so that formatting rules are respected.
  • Branches are kept up to date by rebasing, not by merging.
  • For non-technical changes, adding a changelog entry is required.

Pull requests

  • Keep your pull request (PR) as small as possible, this makes reviewing easier.
  • Commits serve a clear purpose and have a fitting commit message.
  • Branches are kept up to date by rebasing (updating a branch by merging makes for a confusing Git history).
  • PRs are merged by merging the commits on top of the target branch (which is develop).
  • Remember to add your changes in CHANGELOG.md. If your changes are merely technical, it's not necessary to update the changelog as it's not relevant for users.

Commit messages

Commit messages must adhere to Conventional Commits. We use Commitlint to validate commit messages.

We use the conventional configuration for Commitlint.

It is recommended to install the Conventional Commit plugin to make it easier to write commit messages.

Branch names

Because we use merge commits when merging a PR, branch names will be part of the history of the repository. That is why branch names must follow a certain standard.

The format is {category}/GH-{issue number}/{lowercase-description} and a branch name can be maximum 50 characters of length.

Category must match a category used in our Commitlint config. You can also use NO-ISSUE instead of a GitHub issue number.

Valid examples are:

  • fix/GH-123/add-branch-linting
  • docs/GH-123/cleanup

Versioning

This project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

Version metadata

The code doesn't contain version metadata: build.gradle specifies a version of 0.0.0 (via Refined Architect). The versioning information is entirely contained in Git by using tags.

Per Semantic Versioning, the version number being released depends on the changes in that release. We usually can't predict those changes at the start of a release cycle, so we can't bump the version at the start of a release cycle. That means that the version number being released is determined at release time.

Because the version number is determined at release time, we can't store any versioning metadata in the code (build.gradle). If we did, build.gradle would have the version number of the latest released version during the release cycle of the new version, which isn't correct.

Changelog

The changelog is kept in CHANGELOG.md.

Keeping a readable, relevant and user-friendly changelog is essential for our end users to stay up to date with the project.

Please refrain from using technical terminology or adding entries for technical changes that are (generally) not relevant to the end-user.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog.

Gitflow

This project uses Gitflow.

Code style

We use Checkstyle in our build workflow to validate coding style.

It is recommended to import the config/checkstyle/checkstyle.xml file into your IDE, so that formatting rules are respected.

Moreover, the CheckStyle-IDEA plugin can be used to check if there are no style violations.

Release process

The release process is automated and follows Gitflow.

Before running the "Draft release" workflow to start the release process make sure CHANGELOG.md contains all the unreleased changes.

To determine the version number to be released, the workflow will ask you which release type this is (major, minor, patch). The latest version from CHANGELOG.md will be used as a base, and that will be incremented depending on the release type.

CHANGELOG.md will be updated by this workflow, you can review this in the resulting release PR.

If you merge the release PR, the "Publish release" workflow will automatically publish the release. An additional PR will be created to merge the changes in CHANGELOG.md back into develop.

Hotfix process

The hotfix process is semi-automated and follows Gitflow:

  • Create a hotfix branch off main.
  • Commit your changes on this branch.
  • Update CHANGELOG.md (with version number and release date) manually on this branch.
  • Push the branch and create a PR for it, merging into main.

The "Publish release" workflow will take care of the rest.

Workflows

We have a few GitHub workflows:

  • Build (PRs, pushes to develop and main)
  • Draft release (manual trigger)
  • Publish release (merging a PR to main)
  • Validate changelog (PRs)
    • To validate if CHANGELOG.md is valid and updated.
    • Not every pull request needs a changelog change, so the skip-changelog label can be added to the pull request to ignore this.
  • Validate commit messages (PRs)
  • Validate branch names (PRs)
  • Issue for unsupported version (issues)
    • Posts a message on a GitHub issue if the issue is about an unsupported version.
  • Lock resolved issues and PRs (every night)

Build

The build workflow triggers when a pull request is updated or when a commit is pushed to develop or main.

The build workflow takes care of the following:

  • Running a Gradle build.
  • Code style validation with Checkstyle.
  • Uploading the artifacts on the action.

Draft release

The draft release workflow is a manual workflow which will create a release branch from develop.

To determine the version number to be released, it will extract the latest version number from CHANGELOG.md and increment it depending on the release type selected.

This workflow takes care of the following:

  • Creating the release branch.
  • Updating the changelog on this release branch.
  • Creating a pull request merging the release branch into main.

Publish release

The "publish release" workflow is triggered when a release or hotfix PR is merged to main. Usually, this will be the PR created earlier in the "Draft release" workflow.

The workflow takes care of the following:

  • Extracting the version number from the release or hotfix branch name that is merged in the PR.
  • Extracting the changelog entry for this version number.
  • Running a build.
  • Publishing on GitHub packages and CreeperHost Maven.
  • Publishing Javadoc on GitHub pages.
  • Deploying on GitHub releases.
  • Announcing the release on Discord and Twitter.
  • Creating a PR that merges main back into develop to get the changes to CHANGELOG.md and build.gradle into develop from the draft release workflow.