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Ways to Contribute

📖 Best Practice Guides​

Please see our Submit a Best Practice Guide for more details.

⚠️ Issue Tickets​

Do you like to talk about new features, changes, requests?

Issue tickets are a very simple way to get involved in our project. It also helps new contributors get an understanding of the project more comprehensively. This is a great place to get started with the project if you're not sure where to start.

See our list of issues at: https://github.com/NASA-AMMOS/slim/issues

Cleaning up Duplicate Issues​

Often we receive duplicate issues that can confuse project members on which issue ticket to hold conversations upon.

Here's how you can help:

  1. Scan the list of open issue tickets for duplicate titles, or internal wording
  2. If you find duplicates, copy / paste the below message on the conversation thread of the issue ticket that has less participants involved
This is a duplicate issue. Please migrate conversations over to [issue-XYZ](hyperlink to issue)

Good First Issues​

Issue tickets can vary in complexity, and issues labeled with good first issue labels are often a great way to get started with the project as a newcomer.

Take a look at our issue tracking system, and filter by good first issue for issues that are low-complexity, and that will help you get familiar with our issue tracking and patch submission process.

Suggesting New Issue Labels​

Labels within our issue tracking system are a great way to quickly sort through tickets. The project may not yet have labels to cover the full variety of issue tickets. Take a look through our list of issues, and if you notice a set of issue tickets that seem similar but are not categorized with an existing label, go ahead submit a request within one of the issues you've looked at with the following text:

I've noticed several other issues that are of the same category as this issue. Shall we make a new label for these types of issues?

Submitting Bug Issues​

Resolving bugs is a priority for our project. We welcome bug reports. However, please make sure to do the following prior to submitting a bug report:

  • Check for duplicates - there may be a bug report already describing your issue, so check the issue tracking system first.

Here's some guidance on submitting a bug issue:

  1. Navigate to our issue tracking system and file a new issue
  2. Select a bug template (if available) for your issue
    1. Fill out the template fields to the best of your ability, including output snippets or screenshots where applicable
  3. Follow the general guidelines below for extra information about your bug
    1. Include a code snippet if you have it showcasing the bug
    2. Provide reproducible steps of how to recreate the bug
    3. If the bug triggers an exception or error message, include the full message or stacktrace
    4. Provide information about your operating system and the version of our project you're using

📀 Media​

Media, such as such as images, videos, sound files, etc., are an excellent way to explain documentation to a wider audience more easily. Include media in your contributions as often as possible.

When including media into our version-control system, it is recommended to use formats such as:

  • Diagrams: Mermaid format
  • Images: JPEG format
  • Videos: H264 MPEG format
  • Sounds: MP3 format

❓ Questions​

Answering questions is an excellent way to learn more about our project, as well as get better known in our project community.

Here are just a few ways you can help answer questions for our project:

When answering questions, keep the following in mind:

  • Be polite and friendly. See our Code of Conduct recommendations as you interact with others in the team.
  • Repeat the specific question you are answering, followed by your suggestion.
  • If suggesting code, repeat the line of code that needs to be altered, followed by your alteration
  • Include any post-steps or checks to verify your answer can be reproduced

🎨 Design​

Design files can help to guide new features and new areas of expansion for our project. We welcome these kinds of contributions.

Here are just a few ways you can help provide design recommendations for our project:

  • Create visual mockups or diagrams to increase usability of our project applications. This can apply to user interfaces, documentation structuring, or even code architecture diagrams.
  • Conduct user research to understand user needs better. Save your findings within spreadsheets that the project team / contributors can review.
  • Create art, such as logos or icons, to support the user experience for the project

Each of the above can be contributed directly to repository code, and you should use our development process to contribute your additions.

🎟️ Meetups​

A great way to contribute towards our project goals is to socialize and encourage people to meet and learn more about each other. Consider ideas like:

  • Propose workshops or meetups regarding some topic within our project
  • Help point project contributors and community members to conferences and publications where they may socialize their unique innovations
  • Schedule in-person or virtual happy-hours to help create a more social atmosphere within the project community

For the above ideas, use our communication channels to propose get-togethers.