Skip to content

CONTRIBUTING.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
195 lines (129 loc) · 5.91 KB

CONTRIBUTING.md

File metadata and controls

195 lines (129 loc) · 5.91 KB

Contributing for LinkUp

First of all thanks for showing interest to contribute to LinkUp 💖 When it comes to open source, there are different ways you can contribute, all of which are valuable. Here's a few guidelines that should help you as you prepare your contribution.

Table of Contents

Setup the Project

In order to contribute to a project on GitHub, you must first get a copy of the project running locally on your computer. This process is sometimes called a "build process".

There are five steps to building this project:

  1. Set up Git and Install Node.js
  2. Fork the repository
  3. Clone your fork
  4. Install dependencies
  5. Run the project

Once you get the project built, see if you can fix some issues

Set up Git and Install Node.js

All GitHub projects are backed by a version control software called Git. You'll need to set up Git in order to contribute to any project on GitHub.

Link Up is a real time chatting application project, it utilizes, MERN, socket.io. You'll need to install Node.js in order to run the project.

Fork the repository

A fork is a copy of a repository. Forking a repository lets you to make changes to your copy without affecting any of the original code.

Click Fork (in the top-right corner of the page) to copy this repository to your GitHub account.

Clone your fork

A clone is a downloaded version of a repository. Cloning our fork lets you download a copy of the repository to your computer.

Use git to clone your fork

git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/LinkUp

Install dependencies

The beauty of open source is that you can install and use code that other people have written, allowing you to focus on the unique requirements of your project. Third-party code that your project installs is called a dependency because it is required to work.

This project uses npm, a command-line tool bundled with Node.js, to maintain third-party dependencies.

First, navigate into the project's directory

cd LinkUp

Next, Create a branch and switch to the branch which is a good industry practice don't operate on main branch

git branch YOUR_BRANCH_NAME
git checkout YOUR_BRANCH_NAME

Now, Install the dependencies for the server

cd linkup-backend
npm install

Install the dependencies for the client

cd ../linkup-frontend
npm install

Set up the environment variables

cp ./env_sample/.env.backend.sample ./linkup-backend/.env
cp ./env_sample/.env.frontend.sample ./linkup-frontend/.env

Start the development server

Run the Server

../linkup-backend
npm start

Run the Client

cd ../linkup-frontend
npm start

Run the project

Access on Web-Browser

http://localhost:3000

For automatic setup run setup.sh in terminal

Testing for backend

  1. navigate the the linkup-backend folder using
cd ../linkup-backend
  1. run npm test using the following command

Test uses Jest and Supertest to test the backend API endpoints. Coverage is generated under the test/coverage folder. To view the coverage report, open the index.html file in your browser.

npm test

Submit a Pull Request

Making changes on a fork doesn't affect the original code, in order to fix an issue in the main project, you want to change the original code. A pull request is a GitHub feature that lets you do just that!

There are three steps to submitting a pull request:

  1. Save your changes locally
  2. Send your changes to your fork
  3. Open a Pull Request

Save your changes locally

First, get a list of all the files you have changed.

git status

Next, stage the file you want to save. This will add the file to a new list that is ready to be saved.

git add src/YOUR_FILES

Next, verify that the file has been staged correctly. Notice that the text color has changed, and your file is now in a list that says "Changes to be committed" instead of "Changes not staged for commit"

git status

Finally, save your staged files.

git commit -m "Commit_Message"

You'll often hear this process called committing changes. It's the exact same thing.

Send your changes to your fork

With one simple git command, you can send the changes you just committed locally to your fork on GitHub.

git push origin BRANCH_NAME

Open a Pull Request

  1. Find the New Pull Request button
  2. Select the option to compare across forks
  3. Select your username in the head fork option
  4. Select LinkUp in the base fork option
  5. Click Create Pull Request

Now that you have successfully opened a pull request, now patiently wait for someone to respond. Always remember the open source community is supportive and generous but they have jobs, families and friends so wait patiently before contacting them directly.