============
Contributing
============

These are the basics steps you need to follow to contribute to
libvirt.

Repositories and external resources
===================================

The official upstream repository is kept in git
(``https://libvirt.org/git/libvirt.git``) and is browsable
along with other libvirt-related repositories (e.g.
libvirt-python) `online <https://libvirt.org/git/>`__.

Patches to translations are maintained via the `zanata
project <https://fedora.zanata.org/>`__. If you want to fix a
translation in a .po file, join the appropriate language team.
The libvirt release process automatically pulls the latest
version of each translation file from zanata.

Preparing patches
=================

Make sure your patches apply against libvirt git. Developers
only follow git and don't care much about released versions.

Run the automated tests on your code before submitting any
changes. That is:

::

  $ make check
  $ make syntax-check

These tests help making sure that your changes don't introduce
regressions in libvirt, as well as validating that any new code
follows the project's `coding style <coding-style.html>`__.

If you're going to submit multiple patches, the automated tests
must pass **after each patch**, not just after the last one.

Update tests and/or documentation, particularly if you are
adding a new feature or changing the output of a program, and
don't forget to update the `release notes <news.html>`__ if your
changes are significant and user-visible.

Submitting patches
==================

Libvirt uses a mailing list based development workflow.

While preparing your patches for submissions, make sure you
follow the `best practices <best-practices.html>`__ and, once
you're satisfied with the result, go ahead and
`submit your patches <submitting-patches.html>`__.

Developer Certificate of Origin
===============================

Contributors to libvirt projects **must** assert that they are
in compliance with the `Developer Certificate of Origin
1.1 <https://developercertificate.org/>`__. This is achieved by
adding a "Signed-off-by" line containing the contributor's name
and e-mail to every commit message. The presence of this line
attests that the contributor has read the above lined DCO and
agrees with its statements.

Further reading
===============

This page only covers the very basics, so it's recommended that
you also take a look at the following documents:

-  `Programming languages <programming-languages.html>`__
-  `Developer tooling <developer-tooling.html>`__
-  `Advanced test suite usage <advanced-tests.html>`__
-  `Committer guidelines <committer-guidelines.html>`__
