Contributing Guidelines
InterMine has a large variety of repositories in a number of different languages. We have a list of
issues marked up
with labels such as “Help Wanted”, “Beginner”, “Good first bug” that you can choose from, but you’re
welcome to offer
help on any issue if you think you understand what’s going on and what needs to be done.
Picking up tasks
If you find an issue that interests you, here’s what to do. Note that one of the key tasks is communication!
- Read through the issue and make sure you understand what to do. If you need to clarify details,
it’s okay to ask in the issue.
- Once you feel you’re ready to work on the issue, comment on the issue to let us know you’re
working on it! This is important to ensure that no-one else picks up the ticket and works on it at the
same time.
- Work on the issue - make sure to conform to any guidelines there may be in the repo if relevant,
e.g. write tests and
make sure the pass in CI, comment and document your code, make sure the style formatting checks pass,
etc. Ask for
advice if needed.
- When you think your work is ready - make a pull request! You’re a star! ⭐️
- We will review your work, checking for quality and correctness. It may take us a little while to
review it, depending on what else is going on at the time. We may have feedback or changes required
before we can merge your pull request.
- Once it’s merged - bask in glory. You’ve just committed code to an open source project!
Interested in something bigger than an issue?
- Are you a student? Watch our
blog
, mailing list, or
twitter account to find out more
about working with
us during Google Summer of Code
(usually around feb/march every year).
Visit the InterMine GSoC site.
- If we’re hiring, we generally announce vacancies on our mailing list.
- If you have other ideas you’d like to discuss, feel free to contact
us to discuss further.
General guidelines
- In busy periods, we may reassign inactive issues (with no PRs/comments/commits) after 3-4 days. Please
don’t feel bad if this happens! You’re still welcome to contribute to other issues when you have the
time.
- Be nice. Unpleasant behaviour in our community will not be tolerated. InterMine has a Code of Conduct
that
all
contributors are expected to follow.
- If you find documentation is unclear or missing, make a PR to fix it once you know what needs to be
done.
- If an individual repository has contributing guidelines or style guidelines, they override any advice
given
on this
page.
- In need of help? Try visiting our contact
us pages for ways to get more help. Also, feel free to pitch
in if
you think
you know the answer to queries on the mailing list or
chat!
- Thank you for being awesome!