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Contributing code to Element Web

Everyone is welcome to contribute code to Element Web, provided that they are willing to license their contributions to Element under a Contributor License Agreement (CLA). This ensures that their contribution will be made available under an OSI-approved open-source license, currently licensed under Affero General Public License v3 (AGPLv3) or General Public License v3 (GPLv3) at your choice.

How to contribute

The preferred and easiest way to contribute changes to the project is to fork it on github, and then create a pull request to ask us to pull your changes into our repo (https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/)

We use GitHub's pull request workflow to review the contribution, and either ask you to make any refinements needed or merge it and make them ourselves.

Your PR should have a title that describes what change is being made. This is used for the text in the Changelog entry by default (see below), so a good title will tell a user succinctly what change is being made. "Fix bug where cows had five legs" and, "Add support for miniature horses" are examples of good titles. Don't include an issue number here: that belongs in the description. Definitely don't use the GitHub default of "Update file.ts".

As for your PR description, it should include these things:

  • References to any bugs fixed by the change (in GitHub's Fixes notation)
  • Describe the why and what is changing in the PR description so it's easy for onlookers and reviewers to onboard and context switch. This information is also helpful when we come back to look at this in 6 months and ask "why did we do it like that?" we have a chance of finding out.
    • Why didn't it work before? Why does it work now? What use cases does it unlock?
    • If you find yourself adding information on how the code works or why you chose to do it the way you did, make sure this information is instead written as comments in the code itself.
    • Sometimes a PR can change considerably as it is developed. In this case, the description should be updated to reflect the most recent state of the PR. (It can be helpful to retain the old content under a suitable heading, for additional context.)
  • Include both before and after screenshots to easily compare and discuss what's changing.
  • Include a step-by-step testing strategy so that a reviewer can check out the code locally and easily get to the point of testing your change.
  • Add comments to the diff for the reviewer that might help them to understand why the change is necessary or how they might better understand and review it.

Changelogs

There's no need to manually add Changelog entries: we use information in the pull request to populate the information that goes into the changelogs our users see, both for Element Web itself and other projects on which it is based. This is picked up from both labels on the pull request and the Notes: annotation in the description. By default, the PR title will be used for the changelog entry, but you can specify more options, as follows.

To add a longer, more detailed description of the change for the changelog:

Fix llama herding bug

Notes: Fix a bug (https://github.com/matrix-org/notaproject/issues/123) where the 'Herd' button would not herd more than 8 Llamas if the moon was in the waxing gibbous phase

For some PRs, it's not useful to have an entry in the user-facing changelog (this is the default for PRs labelled with T-Task):

Remove outdated comment from Ungulates.ts

Notes: none

Sometimes, you're fixing a bug in a downstream project, in which case you want an entry in that project's changelog. You can do that too:

Fix another herding bug

Notes: Fix a bug where the `herd()` function would only work on Tuesdays
element-web notes: Fix a bug where the 'Herd' button only worked on Tuesdays

This example is for Element Web. You can specify:

  • element-web
  • element-desktop

If your PR introduces a breaking change, use the Notes section in the same way, additionally adding the X-Breaking-Change label (see below). There's no need to specify in the notes that it's a breaking change - this will be added automatically based on the label - but remember to tell the developer how to migrate:

Remove legacy class

Notes: Remove legacy `Camelopard` class. `Giraffe` should be used instead.

Other metadata can be added using labels.

  • X-Breaking-Change: A breaking change - adding this label will mean the change causes a major version bump.
  • T-Enhancement: A new feature - adding this label will mean the change causes a minor version bump.
  • T-Defect: A bug fix (in either code or docs).
  • T-Task: No user-facing changes, eg. code comments, CI fixes, refactors or tests. Won't have a changelog entry unless you specify one.

If you don't have permission to add labels, your PR reviewer(s) can work with you to add them: ask in the PR description or comments.

We use continuous integration, and all pull requests get automatically tested: if your change breaks the build, then the PR will show that there are failed checks, so please check back after a few minutes.

Tests

Your PR should include tests.

For new user facing features in matrix-js-sdk or element-web, you must include:

  1. Comprehensive unit tests written in Jest. These are located in /test.
  2. "happy path" end-to-end tests. These are located in /playwright/e2e, and are run using element-web. Ideally, you would also include tests for edge and error cases.

Unit tests are expected even when the feature is in labs. It's good practice to write tests alongside the code as it ensures the code is testable from the start, and gives you a fast feedback loop while you're developing the functionality. End-to-end tests should be added prior to the feature leaving labs, but don't have to be present from the start (although it might be beneficial to have some running early, so you can test things faster).

For bugs in those repos, your change must include at least one unit test or end-to-end test; which is best depends on what sort of test most concisely exercises the area.

Changes to must be accompanied by unit tests written in Jest. These are located in /spec/ in matrix-js-sdk or /test/ in element-web.

When writing unit tests, please aim for a high level of test coverage for new code - 80% or greater. If you cannot achieve that, please document why it's not possible in your PR.

Some sections of code are not sensible to add coverage for, such as those which explicitly inhibit noisy logging for tests. Which can be hidden using an istanbul magic comment as documented here. See example:

/* istanbul ignore if */
if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== "test") {
    logger.error("Log line that is noisy enough in tests to want to skip");
}

Tests validate that your change works as intended and also document concisely what is being changed. Ideally, your new tests fail prior to your change, and succeed once it has been applied. You may find this simpler to achieve if you write the tests first.

If you're spiking some code that's experimental and not being used to support production features, exceptions can be made to requirements for tests. Note that tests will still be required in order to ship the feature, and it's strongly encouraged to think about tests early in the process, as adding tests later will become progressively more difficult.

If you're not sure how to approach writing tests for your change, ask for help in #element-dev.

Code style

Element Web aims to target TypeScript/ES6. All new files should be written in TypeScript and existing files should use ES6 principles where possible.

Members should not be exported as a default export in general - it causes problems with the architecture of the SDK (index file becomes less clear) and could introduce naming problems (as default exports get aliased upon import). In general, avoid using export default.

The remaining code style is documented in code_style.md. Contributors are encouraged to it and follow the principles set out there.

Please ensure your changes match the cosmetic style of the existing project, and never mix cosmetic and functional changes in the same commit, as it makes it horribly hard to review otherwise.

Attribution

Everyone who contributes anything to Matrix is welcome to be listed in the AUTHORS.rst file for the project in question. Please feel free to include a change to AUTHORS.rst in your pull request to list yourself and a short description of the area(s) you've worked on. Also, we sometimes have swag to give away to contributors - if you feel that Matrix-branded apparel is missing from your life, please mail us your shipping address to matrix at matrix.org and we'll try to fix it :)

Sign off

In order to have a concrete record that your contribution is intentional and you agree to license it under the same terms as the project's license, we've adopted the same lightweight approach that the Linux Kernel (https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/submitting-patches.html), Docker (https://github.com/docker/docker/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md), and many other projects use: the DCO (Developer Certificate of Origin: http://developercertificate.org/). This is a simple declaration that you wrote the contribution or otherwise have the right to contribute it to Matrix:

Developer Certificate of Origin
Version 1.1

Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 The Linux Foundation and its contributors.
660 York Street, Suite 102,
San Francisco, CA 94110 USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.

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.

If you agree to this for your contribution, then all that's needed is to include the line in your commit or pull request comment:

Signed-off-by: Your Name <your@email.example.org>

We accept contributions under a legally identifiable name, such as your name on government documentation or common-law names (names claimed by legitimate usage or repute). Unfortunately, we cannot accept anonymous contributions at this time.

Git allows you to add this signoff automatically when using the -s flag to git commit, which uses the name and email set in your user.name and user.email git configs.

If you forgot to sign off your commits before making your pull request and are on Git 2.17+ you can mass signoff using rebase:

git rebase --signoff origin/develop

Private sign off

If you would like to provide your legal name privately to the Matrix.org Foundation (instead of in a public commit or comment), you can do so by emailing your legal name and a link to the pull request to dco@matrix.org. It helps to include "sign off" or similar in the subject line. You will then be instructed further.

Once private sign off is complete, doing so for future contributions will not be required.

Review expectations

See https://github.com/element-hq/element-meta/wiki/Review-process

Merge Strategy

The preferred method for merging pull requests is squash merging to keep the commit history trim, but it is up to the discretion of the team member merging the change. We do not support rebase merges due to allchange being unable to handle them. When merging make sure to leave the default commit title, or at least leave the PR number at the end in brackets like by default. When stacking pull requests, you may wish to do the following:

  1. Branch from develop to your branch (branch1), push commits onto it and open a pull request
  2. Branch from your base branch (branch1) to your work branch (branch2), push commits and open a pull request configuring the base to be branch1, saying in the description that it is based on your other PR.
  3. Merge the first PR using a merge commit otherwise your stacked PR will need a rebase. Github will automatically adjust the base branch of your other PR to be develop.

Decoding Stack Traces

Element Web has crashed and given you an obfuscated stack trace? Don't panic: use the Decoder Ring (or /decoder-ring/ on any Element Web deploy). It is somewhat of a manual process, but it should tell you what lines the stack trace corresponds to from the source maps.