Contributing

Contributing to FoodAssistant

Thanks for your interest in FoodAssistant. This guide covers how the project is developed so your changes land smoothly.

Where Work Is Tracked

Task and issue state for this project lives in a local tracker (beads), not in GitHub issues. GitHub issues are still useful for bug reports and feature requests from the community, but the authoritative backlog and status are kept in beads. If you are filing a bug or a feature idea, use the issue forms in this repository.

Branching and Commits

Development happens directly on main. Keep changes focused and write plain, descriptive commit messages.

Every commit bumps at least the patch version. APP_VERSION in service/app/config.py is the single source of truth. A git hook handles the bump automatically; install it once per clone:

scripts/install-git-hooks.sh

The hook auto-increments the patch number and skips rebases, merges, and beads-only commits. You do not need to edit the version by hand for an ordinary change.

Local Smoke Test

You can verify the app imports cleanly without Docker. Install the minimal dependency set and import the app:

pip install fastapi jinja2 itsdangerous pillow python-multipart sqlalchemy pydantic-settings httpx
python -c "import sys; sys.path.insert(0,'service'); from app.main import app"

If that import succeeds, the app and its module graph load correctly.

Running Tests

The test suite is pure logic (staple matching, tier classification, LLM JSON parsing) and needs no network or Docker:

pip install pytest
python -m pytest tests/ -q

Please add or update tests when you change behavior that the suite covers.

Writing Style

Documentation and user-facing text follow a couple of simple rules:

• Do not use em-dashes. Use plain hyphens, commas, or separate sentences.
• Do not use ASCII art. Keep Markdown and prose plain.

Pull Requests

Open a pull request against main with a short description of the change and a note on how you tested it. The patch version bumps automatically through the git hook, so you do not need to change it in your PR.

Code of Conduct

This project follows a Code of Conduct. By participating you agree to uphold it.

Security

Please do not report security vulnerabilities through public issues or pull requests. See SECURITY.md for the private disclosure process.