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.. _contributing:
Contributor's Guide
===================
If you're reading this you're probably interested in contributing to
``Requests``. First, I'd like to say: thankyou! Open source projects
live-and-die based on the support they receive from others, and the fact that
you're even *considering* supporting ``Requests`` is incredibly generous of
you.
This document lays out guidelines and advice for contributing to ``Requests``.
If you're thinking of contributing, start by reading this thoroughly and
getting a feel for how contributing to the project works. If you've still got
questions after reading this, you should go ahead and contact either
`Ian Cordasco`_ or `Cory Benfield`_, the active maintainers.
The guide is split into sections based on the type of contribution you're
thinking of making, with a section that covers general guidelines for all
contributors.
.. _Ian Cordasco: http://www.coglib.com/~icordasc/
.. _Cory Benfield: https://lukasa.co.uk/about
All Contributions
-----------------
Be Cordial Or Be On Your Way
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
``Requests`` has one very important guideline governing all forms of
contribution, including things like reporting bugs or requesting features. The
guideline is `be cordial or be on your way`_. **All contributions are
welcome**, but they come with an implicit social contract: everyone must be
treated with respect.
This can be a difficult area to judge, so the maintainers will enforce the
following policy. If any contributor acts rudely or aggressively towards any
other contributor, **regardless of whether they perceive themselves to be
acting in retaliation for an earlier breach of this guideline**, they will be
subject to the following procedure:
1. They must apologise. This apology must be genuine in nature: "I'm sorry you
were offended" is not sufficient. The judgement of 'genuine' is at the
discretion of the maintainers.
2. If the apology is not offered, any outstanding and future contributions from
the violating contributor will be rejected immediately.
Everyone involved in the ``Requests`` project, the maintainers included, are
bound by this policy. Failing to abide by it leads to the offender being kicked
off the project.
.. _be cordial or be on your way: http://kennethreitz.org/be-cordial-or-be-on-your-way/
.. _early-feedback:
Get Early Feedback
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are contributing, do not feel the need to sit on your contribution until
it is perfectly polished and complete. It helps everyone involved for you to
seek feedback as early as you possibly can. Submitting an early, unfinished
version of your contribution for feedback in no way prejudices your chances of
getting that contribution accepted, and can save you from putting a lot of work
into a contribution that is not suitable for the project.
Contribution Suitability
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The project maintainer has the last word on whether or not a contribution is
suitable for ``Requests``. All contributions will be considered, but from time
to time contributions will be rejected because they do not suit the project.
If your contribution is rejected, don't despair! So long as you followed these
guidelines, you'll have a much better chance of getting your next contribution
accepted.
Code Contributions
------------------
Steps
~~~~~
When contributing code, you'll want to follow this checklist:
1. Fork the repository on GitHub.
2. Run the tests to confirm they all pass on your system. If they don't, you'll
need to investigate why they fail. If you're unable to diagnose this
yourself, raise it as a bug report by following the guidelines in this
document: :ref:`bug-reports`.
3. Write tests that demonstrate your bug or feature. Ensure that they fail.
4. Make your change.
5. Run the entire test suite again, confirming that all tests pass *including
the ones you just added*.
6. Send a GitHub Pull Request to the main repository's ``master`` branch.
GitHub Pull Requests are the expected method of code collaboration on this
project. If you object to the GitHub workflow, you may mail a patch to any
of the maintainers listed above.
The following sub-sections go into more detail on some of the points above.
Code Review
~~~~~~~~~~~
Contributions will not be merged until they've been code reviewed. You should
implement any code review feedback unless you strongly object to it. In the
event that you object to the code review feedback, you should make your case
clearly and calmly. If, after doing so, the feedback is judged to still apply,
you must either apply the feedback or withdraw your contribution.
New Contributors
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are new or relatively new to Open Source, welcome! ``Requests`` aims to
be a gentle introduction to the world of Open Source. If you're concerned about
how best to contribute, please consider mailing a maintainer (listed above) and
asking for help.
Please also check the :ref:`early-feedback` section.
Documentation Contributions
---------------------------
Documentation improvements are always welcome! The documentation files live in
the ``docs/`` directory of the codebase. They're written in
`reStructuredText`_, and use `Sphinx`_ to generate the full suite of
documentation.
When contributing documentation, please attempt to follow the style of the
documentation files. This means a soft-limit of 79 characters wide in your text
files and a semi-formal prose style.
.. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
.. _Sphinx: http://sphinx-doc.org/index.html
.. _bug-reports:
Bug Reports
-----------
Bug reports are hugely important! Before you raise one, though, please check
through the `GitHub issues`_, **both open and closed**, to confirm that the bug
hasn't been reported before. Duplicate bug reports are a huge drain on the time
of other contributors, and should be avoided as much as possible.
.. _GitHub issues: https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests/issues
Feature Requests
----------------
Requests is in a perpeptual feature freeze. The maintainers believe that
requests contains every major feature currently required by the vast majority
of users.
If you believe there is a feature missing, feel free to raise a feature
request, but please do be aware that the overwhelming likelihood is that your
feature request will not be accepted.