Contributing¶

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

Installation¶

To set up for local development (requires poetry):

$ git clone https://github.com/niconoe/pyinaturalist.git
$ cd pyinaturalist
$ poetry install -v -E docs
$ # Optional but recommended:
$ pre-commit install --config .github/pre-commit.yml

Contribution Guidelines¶

Documentation¶

We use Sphinx, and the references page is automatically generated thanks to sphinx.ext.autodoc and sphinx_autodoc_typehints extensions. All functions / methods / classes should have proper docstrings.

To build the docs locally:

$ make -C docs html

To preview:

# MacOS:
$ open docs/_build/index.html
# Linux:
$ xdg-open docs/_build/index.html

Documentation is automatically built by ReadTheDocs whenever code is merged into main:

For any new or changed behavior, add a brief high-level summary to HISTORY.md. This isn’t needed for internal changes (tests, other docs, refactoring, etc.).

Tests¶

We use the pytest framework for unit testing. Just run the pytest command to run locally.

We also use tox to test multiple python versions. Use the tox command to run locally. This is also run by GitHub Actions on all pull requests.

Type Annotations¶

All parameters and return values should have type annotations, which will be checked by mypy and will show up in the documentation.

Formatting, Linting, Type Checking, Etc.¶

Code checking and formatting tools used include:

All of these will be run by GitHub Actions on pull requests.

Pre-Commit Hooks¶

Optionally, there is included config to easily set these up to run as a pre-commit hook:

pre-commit install --config .github/pre-commit.yml

This can save you some time in that it will show you errors immediately rather than waiting for CI jobs to complete. You can disable these hooks at any time with:

pre-commit uninstall

Pull Requests¶

Here are some general guidelines for submitting a pull request:

If the changes are trivial, just briefly explain the changes in the PR description.
Otherwise, please submit an issue describing the proposed change prior to submitting a PR.
Make sure the code is tested, annotated and documented as described above.
Submit the PR to be merged into the main branch.

Releases¶

For maintainers:

Releases are based on git tags. GitHub Actions will build and deploy packages to PyPi on tagged commits on the main branch. Release steps:

Update the version in pyinaturalist/__init__.py
Update the release notes in HISTORY.md
Merge changes into the main branch
Push a new tag, e.g.: git tag v0.1 && git push origin --tags
This will trigger a deployment. Verify that this completes successfully and that the new version can be installed from pypi with pip install

Types of Contributions¶

You can contribute in many ways:

Report Bugs¶

Report bugs at https://github.com/niconoe/pyinaturalist/issues.

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

Your operating system name and version.
Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting.
Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.

Fix Bugs¶

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with “bug” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Implement Features¶

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with “feature” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation¶

pyinaturalist could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official pyinaturalist docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

Submit Feedback¶

The best way to send feedback is to create an issue

If you are proposing a feature:

Explain in detail how it would work.
Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)