# Contributing to Logstash

All contributions are welcome: ideas, patches, documentation, bug reports,
complaints, etc!

Programming is not a required skill, and there are many ways to help out!
It is more important to us that you are able to contribute.

That said, some basic guidelines, which you are free to ignore :)

## Want to learn?

Want to lurk about and see what others are doing with Logstash? 

* The irc channel (#logstash on irc.freenode.org) is a good place for this
* The [forum](https://discuss.elastic.co/c/logstash) is also
  great for learning from others.

## Got Questions?

Have a problem you want Logstash to solve for you? 

* You can ask a question in the [forum](https://discuss.elastic.co/c/logstash)
* Alternately, you are welcome to join the IRC channel #logstash on
irc.freenode.org and ask for help there!

## Have an Idea or Feature Request?

* File a ticket on [GitHub](https://github.com/elastic/logstash/issues). Please remember that GitHub is used only for issues and feature requests. If you have a general question, the [forum](https://discuss.elastic.co/c/logstash) or IRC would be the best place to ask.

## Something Not Working? Found a Bug?

If you think you found a bug, it probably is a bug.

* If it is a general Logstash or a pipeline issue, file it in [Logstash GitHub](https://github.com/elasticsearch/logstash/issues)
* If it is specific to a plugin, please file it in the respective repository under [logstash-plugins](https://github.com/logstash-plugins)
* or ask the [forum](https://discuss.elastic.co/c/logstash).

# Contributing Documentation and Code Changes

If you have a bugfix or new feature that you would like to contribute to
logstash, and you think it will take more than a few minutes to produce the fix
(ie; write code), it is worth discussing the change with the Logstash users and developers first! You can reach us via [GitHub](https://github.com/elastic/logstash/issues), the [forum](https://discuss.elastic.co/c/logstash), or via IRC (#logstash on freenode irc)
Please note that Pull Requests without tests will not be merged. If you would like to contribute but do not have experience with writing tests, please ping us on IRC/forum or create a PR and ask our help.

## Contributing to plugins

Check our [documentation](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/current/contributing-to-logstash.html) on how to contribute to plugins or write your own! It is super easy!

## Contribution Steps

1. Test your changes! [Run](https://github.com/elastic/logstash#testing) the test suite
2. Please make sure you have signed our [Contributor License
   Agreement](https://www.elastic.co/contributor-agreement/). We are not
   asking you to assign copyright to us, but to give us the right to distribute
   your code without restriction. We ask this of all contributors in order to
   assure our users of the origin and continuing existence of the code. You
   only need to sign the CLA once.
3. Send a pull request! Push your changes to your fork of the repository and
   [submit a pull
   request](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests). In the pull
   request, describe what your changes do and mention any bugs/issues related
   to the pull request.