CONTRIBUTING.rst

Patch submission guidelines

• Create a new Git branch specific to your change(s). For example, if you're adding a new feature to foo the bars, do something like the following:

  $ git checkout master # or the latest release branch -- see below
  $ git pull
  $ git checkout -b foo-the-bars
  <hack hack hack>
  $ git push origin HEAD
  <submit pull request based on your new 'foo-the-bars' branch>

  This makes life much easier for maintainers if you have (or ever plan to have) additional changes in your own master branch.

  • A corollary: please don't put multiple fixes/features in the same branch/pull request! In other words, if you're hacking on new feature X and find a bugfix that doesn't require new feature X, make a new distinct branch and PR for the bugfix.

• Base bugfixes off the latest release branch (e.g. 1.4, 1.5 or whatever's newest) and new features off of master. If you're unsure which category your change falls in, just ask on IRC or the mailing list --it's often a judgement call.
• Make sure documentation is updated -- at the very least, keep docstrings current, and if necessary, update the ReST documentation in docs/. For example, new env.* settings should be added to docs/usage/env.rst.
• Add a changelog entry at the top of docs/changelog.rst following existing entries' styles. Don't forget to attribute yourself if you'd like credit!
• Try writing some tests if possible -- again, following existing tests is often easiest, and a good way to tell whether the feature you're modifying is easily testable.
• Use hub pull-request when writing a patch for a pre-existing Github Issue. This isn't an absolute requirement, but makes the maintainers' lives much easier! Specifically: install hub and then run hub pull-request to turn the issue into a pull request containing your code.