# How to contribute

We love pull requests and we want to make it as easy as possible to contribute changes.

## Getting started
 
* Make sure you have a [GitHub account](https://github.com/).
* Maybe create a [GitHub issue](https://github.com/gchq/stroom/issues): is this a comment or documentation change? Does an issue already exist?
  If you need an issue then describe it in as much detail as you can, e.g. step-by-step to reproduce.
* Fork the repository on GitHub.
* Clone the repo: `git clone https://github.com/gchq/stroom.git`
* Create a feature branch for your change, branched off `master` or one of the release branches (`6.1`, `7.0`, etc.) e.g. `git checkout -b gh-12345-my-contribution master`.

## Making changes
 
* Run up Stroom and if it's a bug make sure you can re-produce it.
  See the [documentation](https://gchq.github.io/stroom-docs/) for more details on how to develop with Stroom.
* Make your changes and test. Make sure you include new or updated tests if you need to.
* Run a full build from the project root: `./gradlew clean build`.

## Submitting changes
 
* Sign the [GCHQ Contributor Licence Agreement](https://github.com/gchq/Gaffer/wiki/GCHQ-OSS-Contributor-License-Agreement-V1.0).
* Push your changes to your fork.
* Submit a [pull request](https://github.com/gchq/stroom/pulls).
* We'll look at it pretty soon after it's submitted, and we aim to respond within one week.

## Getting it accepted

Here are some things you can do to make this all smoother:
 
* If you think it might be controversial then discuss it with us beforehand, via a GitHub issue.
* Add unit/integration tests.
* Write a [good commit message](http://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/).
* Update the CHANGELOG using `log_change.sh`, see https://github.com/at055612/release-it for details.
  See [CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/gchq/stroom/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md) for examples of change entries.
* If it is a new feature or a change to the user experience then document the change at [stroom-docs](https://github.com/gchq/stroom-docs) and raise a PR.