Contributing

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

You can contribute in many ways:

Types of Contributions

Report Bugs

Report bugs at https://github.com/elfi-dev/elfi/issues.

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

  • Your operating system name and version.
  • Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting.
  • Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.

Fix Bugs

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with “bug” and “help wanted” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Implement Features

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with “enhancement” and “help wanted” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation

ELFI could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official ELFI docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

Submit Feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue at https://github.com/elfi-dev/elfi/issues.

If you are proposing a feature:

  • Explain in detail how it would work.
  • Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
  • Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome 🙂

Get Started!

Ready to contribute? Here’s how to set up ELFI for local development.

  1. Fork the elfi repo on GitHub.

  2. Clone your fork locally:

    $ git clone git@github.com:your_name_here/elfi.git

  3. Install your local copy and the development requirements into a conda environment:

    $ conda create -n elfi python=3.5 numpy
$ source activate elfi
$ cd elfi
$ make dev

  4. Create a branch for local development:

    $ git checkout -b name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature

    Now you can make your changes locally.

  5. Follow the Style Guidelines

  6. When you’re done making changes, check that your changes pass flake8 and the tests:

    $ make lint
$ make test

    Also make sure that the docstrings of your code are formatted properly:

    $ make docs

  7. Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub:

    $ git add .
$ git commit -m "Your detailed description of your changes."
$ git push origin name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature

  8. Submit a pull request through the GitHub website.

Style Guidelines

The Python code in ELFI mostly follows PEP8, which is considered the de-facto code style guide for Python. Lines should not exceed 100 characters.

Docstrings follow the NumPy style.

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

  1. The pull request should include tests that will be run automatically using Travis-CI.
  2. If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated. Put
    your new functionality into a function with a docstring, and add the
    feature to the list in README.rst.
  3. The pull request should work for Python 3.5 and later. Check
    https://travis-ci.org/elfi-dev/elfi/pull_requests
    and make sure that the tests pass for all supported Python versions.

Style Guidelines

The Python code in ELFI mostly follows PEP8, which is considered the de-facto code style guide for Python. Lines should not exceed 100 characters.

Docstrings follow the NumPy style.

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

  1. The pull request should include tests that will be run automatically using Travis-CI.
  2. If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated. Put
    your new functionality into a function with a docstring, and add the
    feature to the list in README.rst.
  3. The pull request should work for Python 3.5 and later. Check
    https://travis-ci.org/elfi-dev/elfi/pull_requests
    and make sure that the tests pass for all supported Python versions.

Tips

To run a subset of tests:


$ py.test tests.test_elfi