Contributing

Restless is open-source and, as such, grows (or shrinks) & improves in part due to the community. Below are some guidelines on how to help with the project.

Philosophy

  • Restless is BSD-licensed. All contributed code must be either
    • the original work of the author, contributed under the BSD, or…
    • work taken from another project released under a BSD-compatible license.
  • GPL’d (or similar) works are not eligible for inclusion.
  • Restless’s git master branch should always be stable, production-ready & passing all tests.
  • Major releases (1.x.x) are commitments to backward-compatibility of the public APIs. Any documented API should ideally not change between major releases. The exclusion to this rule is in the event of a security issue.
  • Minor releases (x.3.x) are for the addition of substantial features or major bugfixes.
  • Patch releases (x.x.4) are for minor features or bugfixes.

Guidelines For Reporting An Issue/Feature

So you’ve found a bug or have a great idea for a feature. Here’s the steps you should take to help get it added/fixed in Restless:

  • First, check to see if there’s an existing issue/pull request for the bug/feature. All issues are at https://github.com/toastdriven/restless/issues and pull reqs are at https://github.com/toastdriven/restless/pulls.
  • If there isn’t one there, please file an issue. The ideal report includes:
    • A description of the problem/suggestion.
    • How to recreate the bug.
    • If relevant, including the versions of your:
      • Python interpreter
      • Web framework
      • Restless
      • Optionally of the other dependencies involved
    • Ideally, creating a pull request with a (failing) test case demonstrating what’s wrong. This makes it easy for us to reproduce & fix the problem. Instructions for running the tests are at restless

Guidelines For Contributing Code

If you’re ready to take the plunge & contribute back some code/docs, the process should look like:

  • Fork the project on GitHub into your own account.
  • Clone your copy of Restless.
  • Make a new branch in git & commit your changes there.
  • Push your new branch up to GitHub.
  • Again, ensure there isn’t already an issue or pull request out there on it. If there is & you feel you have a better fix, please take note of the issue number & mention it in your pull request.
  • Create a new pull request (based on your branch), including what the problem/feature is, versions of your software & referencing any related issues/pull requests.

In order to be merged into Restless, contributions must have the following:

  • A solid patch that:
    • is clear.
    • works across all supported versions of Python.
    • follows the existing style of the code base (mostly PEP-8).
    • comments included as needed.
  • A test case that demonstrates the previous flaw that now passes with the included patch.
  • If it adds/changes a public API, it must also include documentation for those changes.
  • Must be appropriately licensed (see “Philosophy”).
  • Adds yourself to the AUTHORS file.

If your contribution lacks any of these things, they will have to be added by a core contributor before being merged into Restless proper, which may take additional time.