CONTRIBUTING.md

   1 # Contributing to Rust
   2
   3 Thank you for your interest in contributing to Rust! There are many ways to
   4 contribute, and we appreciate all of them. This document is a bit long, so here's
   5 links to the major sections:
   6
   7 * [Feature Requests](#feature-requests)
   8 * [Bug Reports](#bug-reports)
   9 * [Pull Requests](#pull-requests)
  10 * [Writing Documentation](#writing-documentation)
  11 * [Issue Triage](#issue-triage)
  12 * [Out-of-tree Contributions](#out-of-tree-contributions)
  13
  14 If you have questions, please make a post on [internals.rust-lang.org][internals] or
  15 hop on [#rust-internals][pound-rust-internals].
  16
  17 As a reminder, all contributors are expected to follow our [Code of Conduct][coc].
  18
  19 [pound-rust-internals]: http://chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.mozilla.org&channel=%23rust-internals
  20 [internals]: http://internals.rust-lang.org
  21 [coc]: http://www.rust-lang.org/conduct.html
  22
  23 ## Feature Requests
  24
  25 To request a change to the way that the Rust language works, please open an
  26 issue in the [RFCs repository](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/issues/new)
  27 rather than this one. New features and other significant language changes
  28 must go through the RFC process.
  29
  30 ## Bug Reports
  31
  32 While bugs are unfortunate, they're a reality in software. We can't fix what we
  33 don't know about, so please report liberally. If you're not sure if something
  34 is a bug or not, feel free to file a bug anyway.
  35
  36 If you have the chance, before reporting a bug, please [search existing
  37 issues](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/search?q=&type=Issues&utf8=%E2%9C%93),
  38 as it's possible that someone else has already reported your error. This doesn't
  39 always work, and sometimes it's hard to know what to search for, so consider this
  40 extra credit. We won't mind if you accidentally file a duplicate report.
  41
  42 Opening an issue is as easy as following [this
  43 link](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/new) and filling out the fields.
  44 Here's a template that you can use to file a bug, though it's not necessary to
  45 use it exactly:
  46
  47     <short summary of the bug>
  48
  49     I tried this code:
  50
  51     <code sample that causes the bug>
  52
  53     I expected to see this happen: <explanation>
  54
  55     Instead, this happened: <explanation>
  56
  57     ## Meta
  58
  59     `rustc --version --verbose`:
  60
  61     Backtrace:
  62
  63 All three components are important: what you did, what you expected, what
  64 happened instead. Please include the output of `rustc --version --verbose`,
  65 which includes important information about what platform you're on, what
  66 version of Rust you're using, etc.
  67
  68 Sometimes, a backtrace is helpful, and so including that is nice. To get
  69 a backtrace, set the `RUST_BACKTRACE` environment variable. The easiest way
  70 to do this is to invoke `rustc` like this:
  71
  72 ```bash
  73 $ RUST_BACKTRACE=1 rustc ...
  74 ```
  75
  76 ## Pull Requests
  77
  78 Pull requests are the primary mechanism we use to change Rust. GitHub itself
  79 has some [great documentation][pull-requests] on using the Pull Request
  80 feature. We use the 'fork and pull' model described there.
  81
  82 [pull-requests]: https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/
  83
  84 Please make pull requests against the `master` branch.
  85
  86 All pull requests are reviewed by another person. We have a bot,
  87 @rust-highfive, that will automatically assign a random person to review your
  88 request.
  89
  90 If you want to request that a specific person reviews your pull request,
  91 you can add an `r?` to the message. For example, Steve usually reviews
  92 documentation changes. So if you were to make a documentation change, add
  93
  94     r? @steveklabnik
  95
  96 to the end of the message, and @rust-highfive will assign @steveklabnik instead
  97 of a random person. This is entirely optional.
  98
  99 After someone has reviewed your pull request, they will leave an annotation
 100 on the pull request with an `r+`. It will look something like this:
 101
 102     @bors: r+ 38fe8d2
 103
 104 This tells @bors, our lovable integration bot, that your pull request has
 105 been approved. The PR then enters the [merge queue][merge-queue], where @bors
 106 will run all the tests on every platform we support. If it all works out,
 107 @bors will merge your code into `master` and close the pull request.
 108
 109 [merge-queue]: http://buildbot.rust-lang.org/homu/queue/rust
 110
 111 ## Writing Documentation
 112
 113 Documentation improvements are very welcome. The source of `doc.rust-lang.org`
 114 is located in `src/doc` in the tree, and standard API documentation is generated
 115 from the source code itself.
 116
 117 Documentation pull requests function in the same as other pull requests, though
 118 you may see a slightly different form of `r+`:
 119
 120     @bors: r+ 38fe8d2 rollup
 121
 122 That additional `rollup` tells @bors that this change is eligible for a 'rollup'.
 123 To save @bors some work, and to get small changes through more quickly, when
 124 @bors attempts to merge a commit that's rollup-eligible, it will also merge
 125 the other rollup-eligible patches too, and they'll get tested and merged at
 126 the same time.
 127
 128 To find documentation-related issues, sort by the [A-docs label][adocs].
 129
 130 [adocs]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AA-docs
 131
 132 ## Issue Triage
 133
 134 Sometimes, an issue will stay open, even though the bug has been fixed. And
 135 sometimes, the original bug may go stale because something has changed in the
 136 meantime.
 137
 138 It can be helpful to go through older bug reports and make sure that they are
 139 still valid. Load up an older issue, double check that it's still true, and
 140 leave a comment letting us know if it is or is not. The [least recently
 141 updated sort][lru] is good for finding issues like this.
 142
 143 Contributors with sufficient permissions on the Rust repo can help by adding
 144 labels to triage issues:
 145
 146 * Yellow, **A**-prefixed labels state which **area** of the project an issue
 147   relates to.
 148
 149 * Magenta, **B**-prefixed labels identify bugs which **belong** elsewhere.
 150
 151 * Green, **E**-prefixed labels explain the level of **experience** necessary
 152   to fix the issue.
 153
 154 * Red, **I**-prefixed labels indicate the **importance** of the issue. The
 155   [I-nominated][inom] label indicates that an issue has been nominated for
 156   prioritizing at the next triage meeting.
 157
 158 * Orange, **P**-prefixed labels indicate a bug's **priority**. These labels
 159   are only assigned during triage meetings, and replace the [I-nominated][inom]
 160   label.
 161
 162 * Blue, **T**-prefixed bugs denote which **team** the issue belongs to.
 163
 164 * Dark blue, **beta-** labels track changes which need to be backported into
 165   the beta branches.
 166
 167 * The purple **metabug** label marks lists of bugs collected by other
 168   categories.
 169
 170 If you're looking for somewhere to start, check out the [E-easy][eeasy] tag.
 171
 172 [inom]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AI-nominated
 173 [eeasy]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3AE-easy
 174 [lru]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-asc
 175
 176 ## Out-of-tree Contributions
 177
 178 There are a number of other ways to contribute to Rust that don't deal with
 179 this repository.
 180
 181 Answer questions in [#rust][pound-rust], or on [users.rust-lang.org][users],
 182 or on [StackOverflow][so].
 183
 184 Participate in the [RFC process](https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs).
 185
 186 Find a [requested community library][community-library], build it, and publish
 187 it to [Crates.io](http://crates.io). Easier said than done, but very, very
 188 valuable!
 189
 190 [pound-rust]: http://chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.mozilla.org&channel=%23rust
 191 [users]: http://users.rust-lang.org/
 192 [so]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/rust
 193 [community-library]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rfcs/labels/A-community-library