1# Contribution Guidelines for GitHub 2 3## General Contributions to FreeBSD 4 5Please read the guidelines in [Contributing to FreeBSD](https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/contributing/) 6for all the ways you can contribute to the project, how the project is organized, 7how to build different parts of the project, etc. The 8[developer's handbook](https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/developers-handbook/) 9is another useful resource. 10 11FreeBSD accepts source code contributions using one of several methods: 12- A GitHub [pull request](https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/pulls) 13- A code review in [Phabricator](https://reviews.freebsd.org/differential) 14- An attachment on a [Bugzilla ticket](https://bugs.freebsd.org) 15- Direct access to the [Git repository](https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/) 16 17The preferred method depends on a few factors including the size or scope of 18the change. GitHub pull requests are preferred for relatively straightforward 19changes where the contributor already has a GitHub account. 20 21## GitHub Pull Requests 22 23Presently, GitHub 'freebsd-src' repository is one of the publish-only services 24for the FreeBSD 'src' repository the project uses to promote collaboration and 25contribution. Pull requests that need little developer time, are generally 26small, and have limited scope should be submitted. Do not submit pull requests 27that are security-related, problem reports, works in progress, changes that are controversial 28and need discussion, or changes that require specialized review. 29 30A pull request will be considered if: 31 32* It is ready or nearly ready to be committed. A committer should be able to land the pull request with less than 10 minutes of additional work. 33* It passes all the GitHub CI jobs. 34* You can respond to feedback quickly. 35* It touches fewer than about 10 files and the changes are less than about 200 lines. Changes larger than this may be OK, or you may be asked to submit multiple pull requests of a more manageable size. 36* Each logical change is a separate commit within the pull request. Commit messages for each change should follow the [commit log message guide](https://docs.freebsd.org/en/articles/committers-guide/#commit-log-message). 37* All commits have, as the author, your name and valid email address as you would like to see them in the FreeBSD repository. Fake github.com addresses cannot be used. 38* The scope of the pull request should not change during review. If the review suggests changes that expand the scope, please create an independent pull request. 39* Fixup commits should be squashed with the commit they are fixing. Each commit in your branch should be suitable for FreeBSD's repository. 40* Commits should include one or more `Signed-off-by:` lines with full name and email address certifying [Developer Certificate of Origin](https://developercertificate.org/). 41* The commits follow FreeBSD's style guide. See [Style](#Style). 42* Run tools/build/checkstyle9.pl on your Git branch and eliminate all errors. 43* The commits do not introduce trailing white space. 44* If the commit fixes a bug, please add 'PR: \<bugnumber\>' to the commit message. 45* If there's a code review in Phabricator, please include a link as a 'Differential Revision: ' line. 46* If you have run FreeBSD's sources through a static analysis tool, please don't submit the raw results. Please also see the chunking up guidelines. Also, please make sure that kyua tests are the same before / after your change. Ideally, you'd also create a test case that shows an actual bug that's being fixed by these changes. 47 48When updating your pull request, please rebase with a forced push rather than a 49merge commit. 50 51More complex changes may be submitted as pull requests, but they may be closed 52if they are too large, too unwieldy, become inactive, need further discussion in 53the community, or need extensive revision. Please avoid creating large, 54wide-ranging cleanup patches: they are too large and lack the focus needed for a 55good review. Misdirected patches may be redirected to a more appropriate forum 56for the patch to be resolved. 57 58Please make sure that your submissions compile and work before submitting. If 59you need feedback, a pull request might not be the right place (it may just be 60summarily closed if there are too many obvious mistakes). 61 62If you want to cleanup style or older coding conventions in preparation for some 63other commit, please go ahead and prepare those patches. However, please avoid just 64cleaning up to make it cleaner, unless there's a clear advantage to doing 65so. While the project strives to have a uniform coding style, our style offers a 66range of choices making some 'cleanups' ambiguous at best. Also, some files have 67their own consistent style that deviates from style(9). Style changes take 68volunteer time to process, but that time can be quite limited, so please be 69respectful. 70 71The current theory for pull requests on GitHub is to facilitate inclusion in the 72project. The guidelines are streamlined for quick decisions about each pull 73request. Unless explicitly stated, rejection here as "not ready" or "too large" 74does not mean the project is uninterested in the work, it just means the 75submission does not meet the limited scope for pull requests accepted 76here. Sometimes it is easier to review a GitHub pull request than to do the 77review in Phabricator, so that's also allowed. 78 79Finally, if we close a pull request because it's not ready yet, or stalled out, 80please don't give up. You can resubmit them later once you have time to finish 81the work, or to have them reconsidered if you think we've made an error in 82closing it. 83 84### Author Name and Email 85 86We require that contributions are associated with a unique identity. 87The author email address should not be `<something>@users.noreply.github.com`. 88Do note that your name and email address will become a permanent and immutable 89part of the public Git history of the FreeBSD source tree. 90 91## Style 92 93Avoid adding trailing newlines and whitespace. These slow down the integration 94process and are a distraction. `git diff` will highlight them in red, as will 95the Files Changed tab in the pull request. 96 97For C programs, see [style(9)](https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=style&sektion=9) 98for details. You can use [Clang format](https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html) 99with the top level .clang-format file if you are unsure. The 100[git clang-format](https://github.com/llvm-mirror/clang/blob/master/tools/clang-format/git-clang-format) 101command can help minimize churn by only formatting the areas nearby the changes. While 102not perfect, using these tools will maximize your chances of not having style 103comments on your pull requests. 104 105For Makefiles changes, see 106[style.Makefile(5)](https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=style.Makefile&sektion=5) 107for details. FreeBSD's base system uses the in-tree make, not GNU Make, so 108[make(1)](https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=make&sektion=1) is another useful 109resource. 110 111The project uses mdoc for all its man pages. Changes should pass `mandoc -Tlint` and igor (install the latter with `pkg install igor`). 112Please be sure to observe the one-sentence-per-line rule so manual pages properly render. Any semantic changes to the manual pages should bump the date. 113[style.mdoc(5)](https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=style.mdoc&sektion=5) has the all details. 114 115For [Lua](https://www.lua.org), please see 116[style.lua(9)](https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=style.lua&sektion=9) 117for details. Lua is used for the boot loader and a few scripts in the base system. 118 119For shell scripts, avoid using bash. The system shell (/bin/sh) is preferred. 120Shell scripts in the base system cannot use bash or bash extensions 121not present in FreeBSD's [shell](https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=sh&sektion=1). 122 123## Signed-off-by 124 125Other projects use Signed-off-by to create a paper trail for contributions they 126receive. The Developer Certificate of Origin is an attestation that the person 127making the contribution can do it under the current license of the file. Other 128projects that have 'delegated' hierarchies also use it when maintainers 129integrate these patches and submit them upstream. 130 131Right now, pull requests on GitHub are an experimental feature. We strongly 132suggest that people add this line. It creates a paper trail for infrequent 133contributors. Also, developers that are landing a pull request will use a 134Signed-off-by line to set the author for the commit. 135 136These lines are easy to add with `git commit -s`. 137 138## Submitting as part of class work 139 140If you are a professor or teacher that wishes to have your students submit fixes 141as part of their class work, please contact imp@FreeBSD.org before the semester 142to ensure we allocate the proper resources to process them quickly. We'll give 143you more details when you contact us and thanks for including FreeBSD in your 144class work. It also helps us keep track. 145 146## FreeBSD's Upstreams 147 148Anything that's in the directory `contrib`, `crypto`, `sys/contrib` or 149`sys/cddl` likely has an upstream we pull from. Please do a git log --merges in 150any subdirectory of these you are submitting patches for to find out the last 151time we merged from upstream. If it is in the last 5 years, upstream is "active" 152and you should submit your patches there and let the last few people to commit 153to this file (especially merge commits) know. If it's been more than 5 years, 154upstream is likely inactive so please submit the patch. We can sort out if it 155should go into FreeBSD or upstream. 156