# Contributing to knife-ec2 We're glad you want to contribute to knife-ec2! The first step is the desire to improve the project. ## Contribution Process We have a 3 step process for contributions: 1. Commit changes to a git branch, making sure to sign-off those changes for the [Developer Certificate of Origin](#developer-certification-of-origin-dco). 2. Create a Github Pull Request for your change, following the instructions in the pull request template. 3. Perform a [Code Review](#code-review-process) with the project maintainers on the pull request. ### Code Review Process Code review takes place in Github pull requests. See [this article](https://help.github.com/articles/about-pull-requests/) if you're not familiar with Github Pull Requests. Once you open a pull request, project maintainers will review your code and respond to your pull request with any feedback they might have. The process at this point is as follows: 1. Two thumbs-up (:+1:) are required from project maintainers. See the master maintainers document for Chef projects at . 2. When ready, your pull request will be tagged with label `Ready For Merge`. 3. Your change will be merged into the project's `master` branch and will be noted in the project's `CHANGELOG.md` at the time of release. ### Developer Certification of Origin (DCO) Licensing is very important to open source projects. It helps ensure the software continues to be available under the terms that the author desired. Chef uses [the Apache 2.0 license](https://github.com/chef/chef/blob/master/LICENSE) to strike a balance between open contribution and allowing you to use the software however you would like to. The license tells you what rights you have that are provided by the copyright holder. It is important that the contributor fully understands what rights they are licensing and agrees to them. Sometimes the copyright holder isn't the contributor, such as when the contributor is doing work on behalf of a company. To make a good faith effort to ensure these criteria are met, Chef requires the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) process to be followed. The DCO is an attestation attached to every contribution made by every developer. In the commit message of the contribution, the developer simply adds a Signed-off-by statement and thereby agrees to the DCO, which you can find below or at . ``` Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 By making a contribution to this project, I certify that: (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I have the right to submit it under the open source license indicated in the file; or (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source license and I have the right under that license to submit that work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same open source license (unless I am permitted to submit under a different license), as Indicated in the file; or (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified it. (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution are public and that a record of the contribution (including all personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with this project or the open source license(s) involved. ``` For more information on the change see the Chef Blog post [Introducing Developer Certificate of Origin](https://blog.chef.io/2016/09/19/introducing-developer-certificate-of-origin/) #### DCO Sign-Off Methods The DCO requires a sign-off message in the following format appear on each commit in the pull request: ``` Signed-off-by: Julia Child ``` The DCO text can either be manually added to your commit body, or you can add either **-s** or **--signoff** to your usual git commit commands. If you forget to add the sign-off you can also amend a previous commit with the sign-off by running **git commit --amend -s**. If you've pushed your changes to Github already you'll need to force push your branch after this with **git push -f**. ### Chef Obvious Fix Policy Small contributions, such as fixing spelling errors, where the content is small enough to not be considered intellectual property, can be submitted without signing the contribution for the DCO. As a rule of thumb, changes are obvious fixes if they do not introduce any new functionality or creative thinking. Assuming the change does not affect functionality, some common obvious fix examples include the following: - Spelling / grammar fixes - Typo correction, white space and formatting changes - Comment clean up - Bug fixes that change default return values or error codes stored in constants - Adding logging messages or debugging output - Changes to 'metadata' files like Gemfile, .gitignore, build scripts, etc. - Moving source files from one directory or package to another **Whenever you invoke the "obvious fix" rule, please say so in your commit message:** ``` ------------------------------------------------------------------------ commit 370adb3f82d55d912b0cf9c1d1e99b132a8ed3b5 Author: Julia Child Date: Wed Sep 18 11:44:40 2015 -0700 Fix typo in the README. Obvious fix. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ``` ## Issue Tracking Chef uses Github Issues to track issues with knife-ec2. Issues should be submitted at https://github.com/chef/knife-ec2/issues/new. In order to decrease the back and forth in issues, and to help us get to the bottom of them quickly we use the below issue template. You can copy/paste this template into the issue you are opening and edit it accordingly. ``` ### Environment: [Details about the environment such as the Operating System, Ruby release, etc...] ### Scenario: [What you are trying to achieve and you can't?] ### Steps to Reproduce: [If you are filing an issue what are the things we need to do in order to repro your problem?] ### Expected Result: [What are you expecting to happen as the consequence of above reproduction steps?] ### Actual Result: [What actually happens after the reproduction steps?] ``` ## Using git You can copy the knife-ec2 repository to your local workstation by running `git clone git://github.com/chef/knife-ec2.git`. For collaboration purposes, it is best if you create a GitHub account and fork the repository to your own account. Once you do this you will be able to push your changes to your GitHub repository for others to see and use. ### Branches and Commits You should submit your patch as a git branch named after the Github issue, such as GH-22. This is called a _topic branch_ and allows users to associate a branch of code with the ticket. It is a best practice to have your commit message have a _summary line_ that includes the ticket number, followed by an empty line and then a brief description of the commit. This also helps other contributors understand the purpose of changes to the code. ```text [GH-22] - platform_family and style * use platform_family for platform checking * update notifies syntax to "resource_type[resource_name]" instead of resources() lookup * GH-692 - delete config files dropped off by packages in conf.d * dropped debian 4 support because all other platforms have the same values, and it is older than "old stable" debian release ``` Remember that not all users use Chef in the same way or on the same operating systems as you, so it is helpful to be clear about your use case and change so they can understand it even when it doesn't apply to them. ### More information Additional help with git is available on the [Community Contributions](https://docs.chef.io/community_contributions.html#use-git) page on the Chef Docs site. ## Unit Tests knife-ec2 is tested with rspec unit tests to ensure changes don't cause regressions for other use cases. All non-trivial changes must include additional unit tests. To run the rspec tests run the following commands from the root of the project: bundle install bundle exec rspec spec **All tests must pass** before your contribution can be merged. Thus it's a good idea to execute the tests without your change to be sure you understand how to run them, as well as after to validate that you've avoided regressions. ## Code Review Chef Software regularly reviews code contributions and provides suggestions for improvement in the code itself or the implementation. ## Release Cycle The versioning for Chef Software projects is X.Y.Z. * X is a major release, which may not be fully compatible with prior major releases * Y is a minor release, which adds both new features and bug fixes * Z is a patch release, which adds just bug fixes ## Working with the community These resources will help you learn more about Chef and connect to other members of the Chef community: * [Chef Community Guidelines](https://docs.chef.io/community_guidelines.html) * [Chef Mailing List](https://discourse.chef.io/c/dev) * #chef and #chef-hacking IRC channels on irc.freenode.net * [Supermarket site](https://supermarket.chef.io/) * [Chef Docs](http://docs.chef.io) * Chef Software Chef [product page](https://www.chef.io/chef/) ## Contribution Do's and Don't's Please do include tests for your contribution. If you need help, ask on the [chef-dev mailing list](https://discourse.chef.io/c/dev) or the [#chef-hacking IRC channel](https://botbot.me/freenode/chef-hacking/). Please provide evidence of testing your contribution if it isn't trivial so we don't have to duplicate effort in testing. Please do **not** modify the version number of the gem, Chef will select the appropriate version based on the release cycle information above. Please do **not** update the `CHANGELOG.md` for a new version. Not all changes may be merged and released in the same versions. Chef Software will update the `CHANGELOG.md` when releasing a new version. ## Further Resources ### Fog Knife-ec2 uses the Fog gem to interact with EC2's API. When there's a new feature of EC2 that you'd like to utilize in knife-ec2 use cases, that feature will probably be exposed by Fog. You can read about Fog at its [project page](https://github.com/fog/fog).