skytable/CONTRIBUTING.md

# Contribution guidelines

Firstly, thank you for your interest in contributing to this project! This project is powered by the community
and relies on hackers across the globe to report bugs, send suggestions and contribute code to move this project forward.

You can see a list of contributors **[here](./CONTRIBUTORS.md)**

## Ways to contribute

- **#1**: Report bugs
- **#2**: Give us ideas
- **#3**: Send patches

## Coding guidelines

### Special comments

- `FIXME(@<username>)` : Use this when you have made an implementation that can be improved in the future, such as improved efficiency
- `HACK(@<username>)` : Use this when the code you are using a temporary workaround
- `TODO(@<username>)` : Use this when you have kept something incomplete
- `UNSAFE(@<username>)` : Use this to explain why the `unsafe` block used is safe

### Comment style

We prefer to use a 'mixed' commenting style: a cross between the C and C++ styles.
Generally, if a comment can be explained in one-line, then follow the C++ commenting style.
In other cases, use the C style.

### Formatting

- All Rust code should be formatted using `rustfmt`

### Parts of the project

- `ci` , `.github` : CI scripts (which, under normal circumstances, don't need to be modified)
- `cli` : Source for `skysh` which is the command-line client for Skytable
- `examples` : Example configuration files
- `libsky` : This contains functions, structs, ... used by both the `cli` and the
- `server` : Source for the main database server ``
- `sky-bench` : The source for the benchmarking tool resides here
- `sky-macros` : The source for custom compiler macros used by Skytable

### Jargon

Each project has its own jargon — and so do we!

- _actiondoc_ and _actions docs_ : This refers to the `actions.jsonc` file, which is used by the Skytable documentation website for automatically building documentation for the actions

### Branches

The `next` branch is the _kind of_ stable branch which contains the latest changes. However, for most purposes, you should always download sources from the tags.

Pushes are made directly
to next if they don't change things significantly; for example, changes in documentation comments and general optimizations. If
however the changes are huge, then they must be created on a separate branch, a pull request opened, the CI suite run and
finally merged into next.

## Steps

1. Fork the repository
2. Make your changes and start a pull request
3. Sign the CLA (if you haven't signed it already)
4. One of the maintainers will review your patch and suggest changes if required
5. Once your patch is approved, it will be merged into the respective branch
6. Done, you're now one of the [contributors](./CONTRIBUTORS.md)!

## Development environment setup

Skytable uses a Makefile for builds and running the test suite along with a number of tools. To set these up:

1. Install the latest Rust toolchain (stable)
2. Install a C Compiler, Make, Perl and the libssl-dev package on platforms where they are required

**Building**

1. For debug (unoptimized) builds:
   ```
   make build
   ```
2. For release (optimized) builds:
   ```
   make release
   ```

> **TIP**: You can explicitly specificy a target triple by setting a `TARGET` environment variable

**Testing**

Testing is simple: just run this:

```
make test
```

> **NOTE**: Make sure port 2003 is not used by any applications