Contributing

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

You can contribute in many ways:

Types of Contributions

Report Bugs

Report bugs at https://github.com/emilydolson/phylotrackpy/issues.

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

Your operating system name and version.
Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting.
Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.

Fix Bugs

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with “bug” and “help wanted” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Implement Features

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with “enhancement” and “help wanted” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation

Phylotrackpy could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official Phylotrackpy docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

To build and preview the documentation locally,

make -C docs html
make -C docs serve

You will need to load a development virtual environment first (described below).

Submit Feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue at https://github.com/emilydolson/phylotrackpy/issues.

If you are proposing a feature:

Explain in detail how it would work.
Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)

First-time Open-source Contributors

First-time open source contributor? Welcome!

If you’re looking for introductory information about how open-source software works, opensource.guide provides several excellent primers. Project maintainers are happy to provide further guidance — please feel free to reach out directly.

Get Started!

Ready to contribute? Here’s how to set up phylotrackpy for local development.

Fork the phylotrackpy repo on GitHub.

Clone your fork locally:

git clone git@github.com:your_name_here/phylotrackpy.git --recursive
cd phylotrackpy

Create a virtual environment for local development:

python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Create a branch for local development:
```
git checkout -b name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature
```
Now you can make your changes locally.
When you’re done making changes, recompile the bindings and check that your changes pass the tests:
```
make
python3 -m pytest
```
The project build requires a C++-20 compatible compiler. If g++ is installed it will be used by default. To use an alternate compiler, run e.g., make CXX=clang++.

StackOverflow or a chatbot can be useful resources for tips on compiler installation if you run into issues.

Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub:

git add .
git commit -m "Your detailed description of your changes."
git push origin name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature

Submit a pull request through the GitHub website.

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

The pull request should include tests.
If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated. Put your new functionality into a function with a docstring, and add the feature to the list in README.rst.
All GitHub Actions tests should pass.

Deploying

A reminder for the maintainers on how to deploy. Make sure all your changes are committed. Then run:

bumpversion patch # possible: major / minor / patch
git push
git push --tags

Github Actions will then deploy to PyPI if tests pass.