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Contributing

Thanks for your interest in contributing to Apache Answer, hopefully, this document makes the process for contributing clear.

The Open Source Guides website has a collection of resources for individuals, communities, and companies who want to learn how to run and contribute to an open source project. Contributors and people new to open source alike will find the following guides especially useful:

Code of conduct​

Apache Answer has adopted a Code of Conduct that we expect project participants to adhere to. Please read the full text so that you can understand what actions will and will not be tolerated.

Get involved​

Apache Answer is an open source project built by passionate users, contributors, and PMC members. We are committed to creating an open and inclusive community, and we welcome everyone to join us in embracing the Apache way and building open source together.

Anyone can contribute to Answer. In addition to contributing code, there are many other ways to get involved, such as:

Using Answer​
  • Getting started with Answer is easy. Just follow our Getting Started Guide to see if everything works as expected.
  • If not, you can create an issue to report a bug or suggest an improvement.
Triaging issues and pull requests​
  • Ask for more information if you believe the issues does not provide all the details required to solve it.
  • Suggest labels that can help categorize issues.
  • Flag issues that are stale or that should be closed.
  • Ask for test plans and review code.
Contributing code​
  • Claim the issue if you find one that you can solve. Create a pull request to submit your changes.
  • Issues labeled as good first issue are great for getting started.
Improving documentations​
  • If you find any typos, grammar, or errors when reading our docs, simply click on "Edit this page" and make edits on GitHub.
Develop plugins​
  • Extend the functionality of Answer with plugins.
  • There are features that users are expecting, and you can claim or create your needs with develop and submit.
Helping with version releases​
  • Help us make Answer even better by testing new candidate releases and voting on dev@answer.apache.org.
  • If you don't find any problems, give it a +1 (non-binding) upvote.
  • If you find a problem, give it a -1 (non-binding) downvote.
Contributing translations​
  • If you are fluent in a language other than English, you can help us translate Answer into other languages using Crowdin.
  • Please refer to the Contributing Translations Guide for more information.
Helping with support​
  • You can be of great help by helping other users on Answer Meta.
  • Reply and solve the questions in the Mailing List.
Promoting Answer​
  • Share Answer on Social Media
  • Share your story with Answer to more people
  • Join our meetup, forum, etc.
Others​
  • Got new ideas? All contributions are very welcome.
  • If you think you need help planning your contribution, please reach us and let us know you are looking for a bit of help.

Development process​

Answer uses GitHub as its source of truth. The core team will be working directly there. All changes will be public from the beginning.

All pull requests will be checked by the continuous integration system, GitHub actions. There are unit tests, and much more.

Branch organization​

Which branch should you choose when you submit your PR?

  • The main branch corresponds to the latest version of answer. If you're doing a fix for the latest version, then select the main branch.
  • The dev branch is for the next version, so if you're working on a new feature, checkout of the dev branch and PR for it.

Normally, we mark milestones on an issue to keep track of which version the issue should be fixed in. So you can check which version you should commit to based on the milestone.