etcher/docs/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing Guide

Thanks for your interest in contributing to this project! This document aims to serve as a friendly guide for making your first contribution.

High-level Etcher overview

Make sure you checkout our ARCHITECTURE.md guide, which aims to explain how all the pieces fit together.

Running locally

See the RUNNING-LOCALLY.md guide.

Developing

We rely on various npm scripts to perform some common tasks:

• npm run lint: Run the linter.
• npm run sass: Compile SCSS files.

We make use of EditorConfig to communicate indentation, line endings and other text editing default. We encourage you to install the relevant plugin in your text editor of choice to avoid having to fix any issues during the review process.

Updating a dependency

Given we use npm shrinkwrap, we have to take extra steps to make sure the npm-shrinkwrap.json file gets updated correctly when we update a dependency.

Use the following steps to ensure everything goes flawlessly:

• Delete your node_modules/ to ensure you don't have extraneous dependencies you might have brought during development, or you are running older dependencies because you come from another branch or reference.

• Install the new version of the dependency. For example: npm install --save <package>@<version>. This will update the npm-shrinkwrap.json file.

• Run npm run shrinkwrap. This is a small script that ensures that operating system specific dependencies that could get included in the previous step are removed from npm-shrinkwrap.json.

• Commit both package.json and npm-shrinkwrap.json.

Testing

To run the test suite, run the following command:

npm test

Given the nature of this application, not everything can be unit tested. For example:

• The writing operating on real raw devices.
• Platform inconsistencies.
• Style changes.
• Artwork.

We encourage our contributors to test the application on as many operating systems as they can before sending a pull request.

The test suite is run automatically by CI servers when you send a pull request.

Sending a pull request

We make use of commitizen to ensure certain commit conventions, since they will be used to auto-generate the CHANGELOG. The project already includes all necessary configuration, so you only have to install the commitizen cli tool (npm install -g commitizen) and commit by executing git cz, which will drive you through an interactive wizard to make sure your commit is perfectly crafted according to our guidelines.

When sending a pull request, consider the following guidelines:

• Write a concise commit message explaining your changes.

• If applies, write more descriptive information in the commit body.

• Mention the operating systems with the corresponding versions in which you tested your changes.

• If your change affects the visuals of the application, consider attaching a screenshot.

• Refer to the issue/s your pull request fixes, so they're closed automatically when your pull request is merged.

• Write a descriptive pull request title.

• Squash commits when possible, for example, when commiting review changes.

Before your pull request can be merged, the following conditions must hold:

• The linter doesn't throw any warning.

• All the tests passes.

• The coding style aligns with the project's convention.

• Your changes are confirmed to be working in recent versions of the operating systems we support.

Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or need any help!