Contributing

Thank you for your interest in contributing to afscdata!

We welcome simple documentation and bug fixes as well as more substantive code contributions, such as new features. Our current ideas for improving afscdata are on the to do list. If you would like to tackle something larger than a bug fix, please file an Issue to discuss and make sure we are not working on it already.

We reserve the main branch for stable, tagged releases. The dev branch will contain unstable but tested updates. We will create additional, temporary branches to develop and test larger updates before merging them into dev. While working on a temporary branch, we semi-regularly pull updates from dev to deal with merge conflicts as soon as possible.

If you wish to contribute, please use the NOAA Fisheries Toolbox suggested workflow, summarized below. This page has further guidance and resources. The “fork-and-branch” workflow we follow is described in more detail here.

Workflow

  1. File an Issue describing the fix/feature you are planning.
  2. Fork afscdata (create your own copy on GitHub by clicking “Fork”, top right of main page)
  3. Clone your fork (download your copy of afscdata so you can modify it locally, click green “Code” button)
  4. Add the original afscdata repo as upstream so you can get future changes from dev (see here).
    git remote add upstream https://github.com/afsc-assessments/afscdata.git
  5. Checkout dev.
    git checkout dev
  6. Confirm you can fetch and merge changes from the original wham repo (see here).
    git fetch upstream
    git merge upstream/dev
  7. Create a new branch for your change with a meaningful name, e.g. selftest to add a function to simulate data from a fit model and refit.
    git checkout -b <myfeature>
  8. Confirm you can run and pass the automated tests
  9. Work on your feature branch, making changes to your local wham files. Periodically merge in updates from the upstream devel branch (#6 above). Try to maintain the current afscdata coding style.
  10. Add documentation, test(s), and a vignette if applicable.
  11. When your feature is finished, rerun the tests and verify that they pass (#8).
  12. Confirm your branch is up-to-date with the upstream dev.
  13. Commit your changes, and push your local branch to your forked repo (origin, not upstream)
    git commit -m "informative message"
    git push origin <myfeature>
  14. Submit your pull request, following these best practices.
  15. Clean up / delete your feature branch and fork.