# How to Contribute

Liferay Portal is a leading open-source platform designed to help organizations build seamless digital experiences for their customers, partners, and employees. Our software is shaped by a global community of users, enthusiasts, customers, and partners working alongside Liferay engineers to solve complex challenges.

We invite you to help us innovate. Whether you are reporting a bug, identifying a security vulnerability, or proposing a bold new product idea, your feedback via our [Discussion Forums](https://discuss.liferay.com) is the engine of our growth.

For those looking to contribute directly through code—whether by implementing new features or refining existing ones—we welcome your pull requests. To ensure Liferay remains a benchmark for quality and reliability, all contributions are reviewed by our core maintainers.

To jumpstart your journey, please explore the [Liferay Official Documentation](https://learn.liferay.com). It offers the comprehensive guides and reference materials you need to build and contribute effectively.

For more information, visit the links listed in the [Additional Resources](#additional-resources) section below.

## Building Liferay Portal from source

The first step to contributing to Liferay Portal is to clone the `liferay-portal` repo from GitHub and build the platform from source code.

Please follow the instructions provided on the [Building Liferay Source](https://learn.liferay.com/w/reference/contributing-to-liferay-development/building-liferay-source) page.

To better understand the code structure, please also read the [Organizing the Source](https://learn.liferay.com/w/reference/contributing-to-liferay-development/organizing-the-source) page.

## Tooling

Creating customizations and debugging code can be made easier using tooling. Consider installing one or more of the following tools to aid in development:

* [Liferay Workspace](https://learn.liferay.com/w/dxp/development/tooling/liferay-workspace)
* [Blade CLI](https://learn.liferay.com/w/dxp/development/tooling/blade-cli)
* [IDEs and Plugins](https://learn.liferay.com/w/dxp/development/tooling#ides-and-plugins)

## Additional Resources

* [Liferay Community site](https://liferay.dev)
* [Liferay discussion forums](https://discuss.liferay.com)
* [Contributor License Agreement](https://www.liferay.com/legal/contributors-agreement)
* [General GitHub documentation](http://help.github.com)
* [GitHub pull request documentation](http://help.github.com/send-pull-requests)