Contributing

🤝 Contributing Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in contributing to VisualMark Studio! We welcome contributions from developers, technical writers, designers, and documentation enthusiasts of all skill levels.

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🌟 How Can You Contribute?

You can contribute to VisualMark Studio in many ways:

• Reporting Bugs: Found a glitch or issue? Open an issue on GitHub with reproduction steps and logs.
• Suggesting Features: Propose new visual studio modules, format exports, or UI enhancements.
• Submitting Pull Requests: Implement bug fixes, add studio templates, or improve existing components.
• Improving Documentation: Fix typos, enhance guides, and add new examples to this Wiki.

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🌿 Branching & Development Workflow

1. Fork the Repository: Create your own fork at https://github.com/JagaTheGhost/visualmark-studio.
2. Create a Feature Branch: Always branch off of master:

   git checkout -b feature/mermaid-zoom-controls
   # or
   git checkout -b fix/table-studio-escape-pipes

3. Commit Messages: Follow conventional commits:
   • feat: add SVG export option to diagrams studio
   • fix: prevent race condition during sidecar port binding
   • docs: update deployment instructions for portable binary
4. Run Verification Tests: Ensure your changes do not break existing functionality:

   # Backend API tests
   cd backend && python -m pytest tests/test_api.py -v
   
   # Frontend production bundle validation
   cd ../frontend && npm run build

5. Open a Pull Request: Push your branch and open a PR against master. Include a concise description of the changes and before/after screenshots if UI elements were modified.

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🎨 Code Style Conventions

• Frontend:
  • Clean React 18 functional components with standard hooks (useState, useEffect, useCallback).
  • CSS variables defined in src/styles/ adhering to the Obsidian Glow design system tokens.
  • Meaningful prop names and defensive null-checking.
• Backend:
  • Strict type hinting with Pydantic schemas.
  • FastAPI route separation under routers/.
  • SSRF-safe URL parsing for any remote network handlers.

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