phpman > perldoc > Moose::Manual::Contributing

NAME
    Moose::Manual::Contributing - How to get involved in Moose

VERSION
    version 2.2200

GETTING INVOLVED
    Moose is an open project, and we are always willing to accept bug fixes, more tests, and
    documentation patches. Commit bits are given out freely and it's easy to get started!

  Get the Code
    If you just want to get your feet wet and check out the code, you can do so from the comfort of
    your web browser by going to the official repository on GitHub:
    <https://github.com/moose/Moose>.

    However, if you know how to use git and would rather have a local copy (because, why wouldn't
    you?!), then you can clone it:

        git clone git AT github.com:moose/Moose.git

    If, at some point, you think you'd like to contribute a patch, please see "Getting Started".

    *NOTE: Your contribution is very important to us. If, for some reason, you would prefer not to
    use Git/GitHub, come talk to us at #moose on irc.perl.org and we can work something out.*

  People
    As Moose has matured, some structure has emerged in the process.

    Cabal - people who can release moose
        These people are the ones who have co-maint on Moose itself and can create a release.
        They're listed under "CABAL" in Moose in the Moose documentation. They are responsible for
        reviewing branches, and are the only people who are allowed to push to stable branches.

        Cabal members are listed in Moose and can often be found on irc in the
        <irc://irc.perl.org/#moose-dev> channel.

    Contributors - people creating a topic or branch
        You!

  New Features
    Moose already has a fairly large feature set, and we are currently not looking to add any major
    new features to it. If you have an idea for a new feature in Moose, you are encouraged to create
    a MooseX module first.

    At this stage, no new features will even be considered for addition into the core without first
    being vetted as a MooseX module, unless it is absolutely 100% impossible to implement the
    feature outside the core.

    If you think it is 100% impossible, please come discuss it with us on IRC or via e-mail. Your
    feature may need a small hook in the core, or a refactoring of some core modules, and we are
    definitely open to that.

    Moose was built from the ground up with the idea of being highly extensible, and quite often the
    feature requests we see can be implemented through small extensions. Try it, it's much easier
    than you might think.

  Branch Layout
    The repository is divided into several branches to make maintenance easier for everyone
    involved. The branches below are ordered by level of stability.

    stable/*
        The branch from which releases are cut. When making a new major release, the release manager
        makes a new "stable/X.YY" branch at the current position of "master". The version used in
        the stable branch should not include the last two digits of the version number.

        For minor releases, patches will be committed to "master", and backported (cherry-picked) to
        the appropriate stable branch as needed. A stable branch is only updated by someone from the
        Cabal during a release.

    master
        The main development branch. All new code should be written against this branch. This branch
        contains code that has been reviewed, and will be included in the next major release.
        Commits which are judged to not break backwards compatibility may be backported into
        "stable" to be included in the next minor release.

    topic/*
        Small personal branches that are still in progress. They can be freely rebased. They contain
        targeted features that may span a handful of commits. Any change or bugfix should be created
        in a topic branch.

    rfc/*
        Topic branches that are completed and waiting on review. A Cabal member will look over
        branches in this namespace, and either merge them to "master" if they are acceptable, or
        move them back to a different namespace otherwise. This namespace is being phased out now
        that we are using GitHub's pull requests in our "Development Workflow".

    attic/*
        Branches which have been reviewed, and rejected. They remain in the repository in case we
        later change our mind, or in case parts of them are still useful.

    abandoned/*
        Topic branches which have had no activity for a long period of time will be moved here, to
        keep the main areas clean.

    Larger, longer term branches can also be created in the root namespace (i.e. at the same level
    as master and stable). This may be appropriate if multiple people are intending to work on the
    branch. These branches should not be rebased without checking with other developers first.

WORKFLOWS
  Getting Started
    So, you've cloned the main Moose repository to your local machine (see "Get the Code") and
    you're ready to do some hacking. We couldn't be happier to welcome you to our community!

    Of course, to ensure that your first experience is as productive and satisfying as possible, you
    should probably take some time to read over this entire POD document. Doing so will give you a
    full understanding of how Moose developers and maintainers work together and what they expect
    from one another. Done? Great!

    Next, assuming you have a GitHub account, go to <http://github.com/moose/Moose> and fork the
    repository (see <https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo>). This will put an exact replica
    of the Moose repository into your GitHub account, which will serve as a place to publish your
    patches for the Moose maintainers to review and incorporate.

    Once your fork has been created, switch to your local working repository directory and update
    your "origin" remote's push URL. This allows you to use a single remote ("origin") to both pull
    in the latest code from GitHub and also push your work to your own fork:

        # Replace YOUR_USERNAME below with your GitHub username
        git remote set-url --push origin git AT github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/moose.git

    You can verify your work:

        $ git remote -v
        origin  git AT github.com:moose/Moose.git (fetch)
        origin  git AT github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/moose.git (push)

    Now, you're ready for action! From now on, you just follow the "Development Workflow" to publish
    your work and submit pull requests to the Moose Cabal.

  Development Workflow
    The general gist of the STANDARD WORKFLOW is:

    1. Update your local repository with the latest commits from the official repository
    2. Create a new topic branch, based on the master branch
    3. Hack away
    4. Commit and push the topic branch to your forked repository
    5. Submit a pull request through GitHub for that branch

    What follows is a more detailed rundown of that workflow. Please make sure to review and follow
    the steps in the previous section, "Getting Started", if you have not done so already.

   Update Your Repository
    Update your local copy of the master branch from the remote:

        git checkout master
        git pull --rebase

   Create Your Topic Branch
    Now, create a new topic branch based on your master branch. It's useful to use concise,
    descriptive branch names such as: pod-syntax-contrib, feat-autodelegation, patch-23-role-comp,
    etc. However, we'll just call ours "my-feature" for demonstration purposes:

        git checkout -b topic/my-feature

   Hack. Commit. Repeat.
    While you're hacking, the most important thing to remember is that your topic branch is yours to
    do with as you like. Nothing you do there will affect anyone else at this point. Commit as often
    as little or as often as you need to and don't let perfection get in the way of progress.
    However, don't try to do too much as the easiest changes to integrate are small and focused.

    If it's been a while since you created your topic branch, it's often a good idea to periodically
    rebase your branch off of the upstream master to reduce your work later on:

        git fetch                   # or, git remote update
        git rebase origin/master    # or, git pull --rebase origin master

    You should also feel free to publish (using "push --force" if necessary) your branch to your
    GitHub fork if you simply need feedback from others. (Note: actual collaboration takes a bit
    more finesse and a lot less "--force" however).

   Clean Up Your Branch
    Finally, when your development is done, it's time to prepare your branch for review. Even the
    smallest branches can often use a little bit of tidying up before they are unleashed on a
    reviewer. Clarifying/cleaning up commit messages, reordering commits, splitting large commits or
    those which contain different types of changes, squashing related or straggler commits are all
    highly worthwhile activities to undertake on your topic branch.

    Remember: Your topic branch is yours. Don't worry about rewriting its history or breaking
    fast-forward. Some useful commands are listed below but please make sure that you understand
    what they do as they can rewrite history:

        - git commit --amend
        - git rebase --interactive
        - git cherry-pick

    Ultimately, your goal in cleaning up your branch is to craft a set of commits whose content and
    messages are as focused and understandable as possible. Doing so will greatly increase the
    chances of a speedy review and acceptance into the mainline development.

   Rebase on the Latest
    Before your final push and issuing a pull request, you need to ensure that your changes can be
    easily merged into the master branch of the upstream repository. This is done by once again
    rebasing your branch on the latest "origin/master".

        git fetch                   # or, git remote update
        git rebase origin/master    # or, git pull --rebase origin master

   Publish and Pull Request
    Now it's time to make your final push of the branch to your fork. The "--force" flag is only
    necessary if you've pushed before and subsequently rewriting your history:

        git push --force

    After your branch is published, you can issue a pull request to the Moose Cabal. See
    <https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests> for details.

    Congratulations! You're now a contributor!

  Approval Workflow
    Moose is an open project but it is also an increasingly important one. Many modules depend on
    Moose being stable. Therefore, we have a basic set of criteria for reviewing and merging
    branches. What follows is a set of rough guidelines that ensures all new code is properly vetted
    before it is merged to the master branch.

    It should be noted that if you want your specific branch to be approved, it is your
    responsibility to follow this process and advocate for your branch.

    Small bug fixes, doc patches and additional passing tests.
        These items don't really require approval beyond one of the core contributors just doing a
        simple review. For especially simple patches (doc patches especially), committing directly
        to master is fine.

    Larger bug fixes, doc additions and TODO or failing tests.
        Larger bug fixes should be reviewed by at least one cabal member and should be tested using
        the xt/author/test-my-dependents.t test.

        New documentation is always welcome, but should also be reviewed by a cabal member for
        accuracy.

        TODO tests are basically feature requests, see our "New Features" section for more
        information on that. If your feature needs core support, create a "topic/" branch using the
        "Development Workflow" and start hacking away.

        Failing tests are basically bug reports. You should find a core contributor and/or cabal
        member to see if it is a real bug, then submit the bug and your test to the RT queue. Source
        control is not a bug reporting tool.

    New user-facing features.
        Anything that creates a new user-visible feature needs to be approved by more than one cabal
        member.

        Make sure you have reviewed "New Features" to be sure that you are following the guidelines.
        Do not be surprised if a new feature is rejected for the core.

    New internals features.
        New features for Moose internals are less restrictive than user facing features, but still
        require approval by at least one cabal member.

        Ideally you will have run the xt/author/test-my-dependents.t script to be sure you are not
        breaking any MooseX module or causing any other unforeseen havoc. If you do this (rather
        than make us do it), it will only help to hasten your branch's approval.

    Backwards incompatible changes.
        Anything that breaks backwards compatibility must be discussed by the cabal. Backwards
        incompatible changes should not be merged to master if there are strong objections from any
        cabal members.

        We have a policy for what we see as sane "BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY" for Moose. If your
        changes break back-compat, you must be ready to discuss and defend your change.

  Release Workflow
        # major releases (including trial releases)
        git checkout master

        # minor releases
        git checkout stable/X.YY

        # do final changelogging, etc
        git commit
        dzil release # or dzil release --trial for trial releases

   Release How-To
    Moose uses Dist::Zilla to manage releases. Although the git repository comes with a
    "Makefile.PL", it is a very basic one just to allow the basic "perl Makefile.PL && make && make
    test" cycle to work. In particular, it doesn't include any release metadata, such as
    dependencies. In order to get started with Dist::Zilla, first install it: "cpanm Dist::Zilla",
    and then install the plugins necessary for reading the "dist.ini": "dzil authordeps | cpanm".

    Moose releases fall into two categories, each with their own level of release preparation. A
    minor release is one which does not include any API changes, deprecations, and so on. In that
    case, it is sufficient to simply test the release candidate against a few different Perls.
    Testing should be done against at least two recent major versions of Perl (5.8.8 and 5.10.1, for
    example). If you have more versions available, you are encouraged to test them all. However, we
    do not put a lot of effort into supporting older 5.8.x releases.

    For major releases which include an API change or deprecation, you should run the
    xt/author/test-my-dependents.t test. This tests a long list of MooseX and other Moose-using
    modules from CPAN. In order to run this script, you must arrange to have the new version of
    Moose in Perl's include path. You can use "prove -b" and "prove -I", install the module, or
    fiddle with the "PERL5LIB" environment variable, whatever makes you happy.

    This test downloads each module from CPAN, runs its tests, and logs failures and warnings to a
    set of files named test-mydeps-$$-*.log. If there are failures or warnings, please work with the
    authors of the modules in question to fix them. If the module author simply isn't available or
    does not want to fix the bug, it is okay to make a release.

    Regardless of whether or not a new module is available, any breakages should be noted in the
    conflicts list in the distribution's dist.ini.

  Emergency Bug Workflow (for immediate release)
    The stable branch exists for easily making bug fix releases.

        git remote update
        git checkout -b topic/my-emergency-fix origin/master
        # hack
        git commit

    Then a cabal member merges into "master", and backports the change into "stable/X.YY":

        git checkout master
        git merge topic/my-emergency-fix
        git push
        git checkout stable/X.YY
        git cherry-pick -x master
        git push
        # release

  Project Workflow
    For longer lasting branches, we use a subversion style branch layout, where master is routinely
    merged into the branch. Rebasing is allowed as long as all the branch contributors are using
    "git pull --rebase" properly.

    "commit --amend", "rebase --interactive", etc. are not allowed, and should only be done in topic
    branches. Committing to master is still done with the same review process as a topic branch, and
    the branch must merge as a fast forward.

    This is pretty much the way we're doing branches for large-ish things right now.

    Obviously there is no technical limitation on the number of branches. You can freely create
    topic branches off of project branches, or sub projects inside larger projects freely. Such
    branches should incorporate the name of the branch they were made off so that people don't
    accidentally assume they should be merged into master:

        git checkout -b my-project--topic/foo my-project

    (unfortunately Git will not allow "my-project/foo" as a branch name if "my-project" is a valid
    ref).

BRANCH ARCHIVAL
    Merged branches should be deleted.

    Failed branches may be kept, but should be moved to "attic/" to differentiate them from
    in-progress topic branches.

    Branches that have not been worked on for a long time will be moved to "abandoned/"
    periodically, but feel free to move the branch back to "topic/" if you want to start working on
    it again.

TESTS, TESTS, TESTS
    If you write *any* code for Moose, you must add tests for that code. If you do not write tests
    then we cannot guarantee your change will not be removed or altered at a later date, as there is
    nothing to confirm this is desired behavior.

    If your code change/addition is deep within the bowels of Moose and your test exercises this
    feature in a non-obvious way, please add some comments either near the code in question or in
    the test so that others know.

    We also greatly appreciate documentation to go with your changes, and an entry in the Changes
    file. Make sure to give yourself credit! Major changes or new user-facing features should also
    be documented in Moose::Manual::Delta.

DOCS, DOCS, DOCS
    Any user-facing changes must be accompanied by documentation. If you're not comfortable writing
    docs yourself, you might be able to convince another Moose dev to help you.

    Our goal is to make sure that all features are documented. Undocumented features are not
    considered part of the API when it comes to determining whether a change is backwards
    compatible.

BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY
    Change is inevitable, and Moose is not immune to this. We do our best to maintain backwards
    compatibility, but we do not want the code base to become overburdened by this. This is not to
    say that we will be frivolous with our changes, quite the opposite, just that we are not afraid
    of change and will do our best to keep it as painless as possible for the end user.

    Our policy for handling backwards compatibility is documented in more detail in
    Moose::Manual::Support.

    All backwards incompatible changes must be documented in Moose::Manual::Delta. Make sure to
    document any useful tips or workarounds for the change in that document.

AUTHORS
    *   Stevan Little <stevan AT cpan.org>

    *   Dave Rolsky <autarch AT urth.org>

    *   Jesse Luehrs <doy AT cpan.org>

    *   Shawn M Moore <sartak AT cpan.org>

    *   יובל קוג'מן (Yuval Kogman) <nothingmuch AT woobling.org>

    *   Karen Etheridge <ether AT cpan.org>

    *   Florian Ragwitz <rafl AT debian.org>

    *   Hans Dieter Pearcey <hdp AT cpan.org>

    *   Chris Prather <chris AT prather.org>

    *   Matt S Trout <mstrout AT cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
    This software is copyright (c) 2006 by Infinity Interactive, Inc.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl
    5 programming language system itself.