The node.js project welcomes new contributors. This document will guide you through the process.
Fork the project on GitHub and check out your copy.
$ git clone [email protected]:username/node-website.git
$ cd node
$ git remote add upstream git://github.com/joyent/node-website.git
In case of doubt, open an issue in the [issue tracker][], post your question to the [node.js mailing list][] or contact one of the [project maintainers][] on [IRC][].
Especially do so if you plan to work on something big. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing your hard work go to waste because your vision does not align with that of a project maintainer.
Make sure git knows your name and email address:
$ git config --global user.name "J. Random User"
$ git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
Writing good commit logs is important. A commit log should describe what changed and why. Follow these guidelines when writing one:
- The first line should be 50 characters or less and contain a short description of the change prefixed with the name of the changed subsystem (e.g. "net: add localAddress and localPort to Socket").
- Keep the second line blank.
- Wrap all other lines at 72 columns.
A good commit log looks like this:
subsystem: explaining the commit in one line
Body of commit message is a few lines of text, explaining things
in more detail, possibly giving some background about the issue
being fixed, etc etc.
The body of the commit message can be several paragraphs, and
please do proper word-wrap and keep columns shorter than about
72 characters or so. That way `git log` will show things
nicely even when it is indented.
The header line should be meaningful; it is what other people see when they
run git shortlog or git log --oneline.
Check the output of git log --oneline files_that_you_changed to find out
what subsystem (or subsystems) your changes touch.
Use git rebase (not git merge) to sync your work from time to time.
$ git fetch upstream
$ git rebase upstream/v0.10 # or upstream/master
$ git push origin my-feature-branch
Go to https://github.com/username/node-website and select your feature branch. Click the 'Pull Request' button and fill out the form.
Pull requests are usually reviewed within a few days. If there are comments to address, apply your changes in a separate commit and push that to your feature branch. Post a comment in the pull request afterwards; GitHub does not send out notifications when you add commits.