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Contributing

Thank you for considering making contributions to Ethermint!

Contributing to this repo can mean many things such as participating in discussion or proposing code changes. To ensure a smooth workflow for all contributors, the general procedure for contributing has been established:

  1. Either open or find an issue you'd like to help with
  2. Participate in thoughtful discussion on that issue
  3. If you would like to contribute:
    1. If the issue is a proposal, ensure that the proposal has been accepted
    2. Ensure that nobody else has already begun working on this issue. If they have, make sure to contact them to collaborate
    3. If nobody has been assigned for the issue and you would like to work on it, make a comment on the issue to inform the community of your intentions to begin work
    4. Follow standard GitHub best practices: fork the repo, branch from the HEAD of main, make some commits, and submit a PR to main
      • For core developers working within the ethermint repo, to ensure a clear ownership of branches, branches must be named with the convention {moniker}/{issue#}-branch-name
    5. Be sure to submit the PR in Draft mode submit your PR early, even if it's incomplete as this indicates to the community you're working on something and allows them to provide comments early in the development process
    6. When the code is complete it can be marked Ready for Review
    7. Be sure to include a relevant change log entry in the Unreleased section of CHANGELOG.md (see file for log format)

Note that for very small or blatantly obvious problems (such as typos) it is not required to an open issue to submit a PR, but be aware that for more complex problems/features, if a PR is opened before an adequate design discussion has taken place in a GitHub issue, that PR runs a high likelihood of being rejected.

Other notes:

  • Looking for a good place to start contributing? How about checking out some good first issues
  • Please make sure to run make format before every commit - the easiest way to do this is have your editor run it for you upon saving a file. Additionally please ensure that your code is lint compliant by running make lint-fix. A convenience git pre-commit hook that runs the formatters automatically before each commit is available in the contrib/githooks/ directory.

Architecture Decision Records (ADR)

When proposing an architecture decision for Ethermint, please start by opening an issue or a discussion with a summary of the proposal. Once the proposal has been discussed and there is rough alignment on a high-level approach to the design, the ADR creation process can begin. We are following this process to ensure all involved parties are in agreement before any party begins coding the proposed implementation. If you would like to see examples of how these are written, please refer to the current ADRs.

Pull Requests

PRs should be categorically broken up based on the type of changes being made (for example, fix, feat, refactor, docs, and so on). The type must be included in the PR title as a prefix (for example, fix: <description>). This convention ensures that all changes that are committed to the base branch follow the Conventional Commits specification. Additionally, each PR should only address a single issue.

Pull Request Templates

There are three PR templates. The default template is for types fix, feat, and refactor. We also have a docs template for documentation changes and an other template for changes that do not affect production code. When previewing a PR before it has been opened, you can change the template by adding one of the following parameters to the url:

  • template=docs.md
  • template=other.md

Requesting Reviews

In order to accommodate the review process, the author of the PR must complete the author checklist to the best of their abilities before marking the PR as "Ready for Review". If you would like to receive early feedback on the PR, open the PR as a "Draft" and leave a comment in the PR indicating that you would like early feedback and tagging whoever you would like to receive feedback from.

Reviewing Pull Requests

All PRs require at least two review approvals before they can be merged (one review might be acceptable in the case of minor changes to docs or other changes that do not affect production code). Each PR template has a reviewers checklist that must be completed before the PR can be merged. Each reviewer is responsible for all checked items unless they have indicated otherwise by leaving their handle next to specific items. In addition, use the following review explanations:

  • LGTM without an explicit approval means that the changes look good, but you haven't thoroughly reviewed the reviewer checklist items.
  • Approval means that you have completed some or all of the reviewer checklist items. If you only reviewed selected items, you must add your handle next to the items that you have reviewed. In addition, follow these guidelines:
    • You must also think through anything which ought to be included but is not
    • You must think through whether any added code could be partially combined (DRYed) with existing code
    • You must think through any potential security issues or incentive-compatibility flaws introduced by the changes
    • Naming must be consistent with conventions and the rest of the codebase
    • Code must live in a reasonable location, considering dependency structures (for example, not importing testing modules in production code, or including example code modules in production code).
    • If you approve the PR, you are responsible for any issues mentioned here and any issues that should have been addressed after thoroughly reviewing the reviewer checklist items in the pull request template.
  • If you sat down with the PR submitter and did a pairing review, add this information in the Approval or your PR comments.
  • If you are only making "surface level" reviews, submit any notes as Comments without adding a review.

Forking

Go requires code to live under absolute paths, and this requirement complicates forking. While my fork lives at https://github.com/rigeyrigerige/ethermint, the code should never exist at $GOPATH/src/github.com/rigeyrigerige/ethermint. Instead, we use git remote to add the fork as a new remote for the original repo, $GOPATH/src/github.com/evmos/ethermint, and do all the work there.

For instance, to create a fork and work on a branch of it, I would:

  • Create the fork on GitHub, using the fork button.
  • Go to the original repo checked out locally (i.e. $GOPATH/src/github.com/evmos/ethermint)
  • git remote rename origin upstream
  • git remote add origin git@github.com:rigeyrigerige/ethermint.git

Now origin refers to my fork and upstream refers to the Ethermint version. So I can git push -u origin main to update my fork, and make pull requests to Ethermint from there. Of course, replace rigeyrigerige with your git handle.

To pull in updates from the origin repo, run

  • git fetch upstream
  • git rebase upstream/main (or whatever branch you want)

Please don't make Pull Requests from main.

Dependencies

We use Go 1.14 Modules to manage dependency versions.

The main branch of every Tharsis repository should just build with go get, which means they should be kept up-to-date with their dependencies, so we can get away with telling people they can just go get our software.

Since some dependencies are not under our control, a third party may break our build, in which case we can fall back on go mod tidy -v.

Protobuf

We use Protocol Buffers along with gogoproto to generate code for use in Ethermint.

For determinstic behavior around Protobuf tooling, everything is containerized using Docker. Make sure to have Docker installed on your machine, or head to Docker's website to install it.

For formatting code in .proto files, you can run make proto-format command.

For linting and checking breaking changes, we use buf. You can use the commands make proto-lint and make proto-check-breaking to respectively lint your proto files and check for breaking changes.

To generate the protobuf stubs, you can run make proto-gen.

We also added the make proto-all command to run all the above commands sequentially.

In order for imports to properly compile in your IDE, you may need to manually set your protobuf path in your IDE's workspace settings/config.

For example, in vscode your .vscode/settings.json should look like:

{
    "protoc": {
        "options": [
        "--proto_path=${workspaceRoot}/proto",
        "--proto_path=${workspaceRoot}/third_party/proto"
        ]
    }
}

Testing

Tests can be ran by running make test at the top level of Ethermint repository.

We expect tests to use require or assert rather than t.Skip or t.Fail, unless there is a reason to do otherwise. When testing a function under a variety of different inputs, we prefer to use table driven tests. Table driven test error messages should follow the following format <desc>, tc #<index>, i #<index>. <desc> is an optional short description of whats failing, tc is the index within the table of the testcase that is failing, and i is when there is a loop, exactly which iteration of the loop failed. The idea is you should be able to see the error message and figure out exactly what failed. Here is an example check:

<some table>
for tcIndex, tc := range cases {
  <some code>
  for i := 0; i < tc.numTxsToTest; i++ {
      <some code>
      require.Equal(t, expectedTx[:32], calculatedTx[:32], "First 32 bytes of the txs differed. tc #%d, i #%d", tcIndex, i)

Branching Model and Release

User-facing repos should adhere to the trunk based development branching model.

Libraries need not follow the model strictly, but would be wise to.

Ethermint utilizes semantic versioning.

PR Targeting

Ensure that you base and target your PR on the main branch.

All feature additions should be targeted against main. Bug fixes for an outstanding release candidate should be targeted against the release candidate branch.

Development Procedure

  • the latest state of development is on main
  • main must never fail make lint test test-race
  • main should not fail make lint
  • no --force onto main (except when reverting a broken commit, which should seldom happen)
  • create a development branch either on github.com/evmos/ethermint, or your fork (using git remote add origin)
  • before submitting a pull request, begin git rebase on top of main

Pull Merge Procedure

  • ensure pull branch is rebased on main
  • run make test to ensure that all tests pass
  • merge pull request

Release Procedure

  • Start on main
  • Create the release candidate branch release/v<major>.<minor>.x (going forward known as RC) and ensure it's protected against pushing from anyone except the release manager/coordinator
    • no PRs targeting this branch should be merged unless exceptional circumstances arise
  • On the RC branch, prepare a new version section in the CHANGELOG.md
    • All links must be link-ified: $ python ./scripts/linkify_changelog.py CHANGELOG.md
    • Copy the entries into a RELEASE_CHANGELOG.md, this is needed so the bot knows which entries to add to the release page on GitHub.
  • Kick off a large round of simulation testing (e.g. 400 seeds for 2k blocks)
  • If errors are found during the simulation testing, commit the fixes to main and push the changes to the RC branch
  • After simulation has successfully completed, create the release branch (release/vX.XX.X) from the RC branch
  • Create a PR to main to incorporate the CHANGELOG.md updates
  • Tag the release (use git tag -a) and create a release in GitHub
  • Delete the RC branches

Point Release Procedure

At the moment, only a single major release will be supported, so all point releases will be based off of that release.

In order to alleviate the burden for a single person to have to cherry-pick and handle merge conflicts of all desired backporting PRs to a point release, we instead maintain a living backport branch, where all desired features and bug fixes are merged into as separate PRs.

Example:

Current release is v0.38.4. We then maintain a (living) branch release/v0.38.x, for the 0.38 release series. As bugs are fixed and PRs are merged into main, if a contributor wishes the PR to be released as SRU into the v0.38.x point release, the contributor must:

  1. Add 0.38.N-backport label
  2. Pull latest changes on the desired release/v0.38.x branch
  3. Create a 2nd PR merging the respective SRU PR into release/v0.38.x
  4. Update the PR's description and ensure it contains the following information:
    • [Impact] Explanation of how the bug affects users or developers.
    • [Test Case] section with detailed instructions on how to reproduce the bug.
    • [Regression Potential] section with a discussion how regressions are most likely to manifest, or might manifest even if it's unlikely, as a result of the change. It is assumed that any SRU candidate PR is well-tested before it is merged in and has an overall low risk of regression.

It is the PR's author's responsibility to fix merge conflicts, update changelog entries, and ensure CI passes. If a PR originates from an external contributor, it may be a core team member's responsibility to perform this process instead of the original author. Lastly, it is core team's responsibility to ensure that the PR meets all the SRU criteria.

Finally, when a point release is ready to be made:

  1. Create release/v0.38.N branch
  2. Ensure changelog entries are verified
    1. Be sure changelog entries are added to RELEASE_CHANGELOG.md
  3. Add release version date to the changelog
  4. Push release branch along with the annotated tag: git tag -a
  5. Create a PR into main containing ONLY CHANGELOG.md updates
    1. Do not push RELEASE_CHANGELOG.md to main

Note, although we aim to support only a single release at a time, the process stated above could be used for multiple previous versions.

Code Owner Membership

In the ethos of open source projects, and out of necessity to keep the code alive, the core contributor team will strive to permit special repo privileges to developers who show an aptitude towards developing with this code base.

Several different kinds of privileges may be granted however most common privileges to be granted are merge rights to either part of, or the entirety of the code base (through the GitHub CODEOWNERS file). The on-boarding process for new code owners is as follows: On a bi-monthly basis (or more frequently if agreeable) all the existing code owners will privately convene to discuss potential new candidates as well as the potential for existing code-owners to exit or "pass on the torch". This private meeting is to be a held as a phone/video meeting.

Subsequently after the meeting, and pending final approval from Tharsis, one of the existing code owners should open a PR modifying the CODEOWNERS file. The other code owners should then all approve this PR to publicly display their support.

Only if unanimous consensus is reached among all the existing code-owners will an invitation be extended to a new potential-member. Likewise, when an existing member is suggested to be removed/or have their privileges reduced, the member in question must agree on the decision for their removal or else no action should be taken. If however, a code-owner is demonstrably shown to intentionally have had acted maliciously or grossly negligent, code-owner privileges may be stripped with no prior warning or consent from the member in question.

Other potential removal criteria:

  • Missing 3 scheduled meetings results in Tharsis evaluating whether the member should be removed / replaced
  • Violation of Code of Conduct

Earning this privilege should be considered to be no small feat and is by no means guaranteed by any quantifiable metric. It is a symbol of great trust of the community of this project.

Concept & Release Approval Process

The process for Ethermint maintainers take features and ADRs from concept to release is broken up into three distinct stages: Strategy Discovery, Concept Approval, and Implementation & Release Approval

Strategy Discovery

  • Develop long term priorities, strategy and roadmap for Ethermint
  • Release committee not yet defined as there is already a roadmap that can be used for the time being

Concept Approval

  • Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) may be proposed by any contributors or maintainers of Ethermint, and should follow the guidelines outlined in the ADR Creation Process
  • After proposal, a time bound period for Request for Comment (RFC) on ADRs commences
  • ADRs are intended to be iterative, and may be merged into main while still in a Proposed status

Time Bound Period

  • Once a PR for an ADR is opened, reviewers are expected to perform a first review within 1 week of pull request being open
  • Time bound period for individual ADR Pull Requests to be merged should not exceed 2 weeks
  • Total time bound period for an ADR to reach a decision (ABANDONED | ACCEPTED | REJECTED) should not exceed 4 weeks

If an individual Pull Request for an ADR needs more time than 2 weeks to reach resolution, it should be merged in current state (Draft or Proposed), with its contents updated to summarize the current state of its discussion.

If an ADR is taking longer than 4 weeks to reach a final conclusion, the Concept Approval Committee should convene to rectify the situation by either:

  • unanimously setting a new time bound period for this ADR
  • making changes to the Concept Approval Process (as outlined here)
  • making changes to the members of the Concept Approval Committee

Approval Committee & Decision Making

In absence of general consensus, decision making requires 1/2 vote from the two members of the Concept Approval Committee.

Committee Members

  • Core Members: Federico (Tharsis), Akash (Tharsis), Nick (Tharsis)

Committee Criteria

Members must:

  • Participate in all or almost all ADR discussions, both on GitHub as well as in bi-weekly Architecture Review meetings
  • Be active contributors to Ethermint, and furthermore should be continuously making substantial contributions to the project's codebase, review process, documentation and ADRs
  • Have stake in Ethermint, represented by:
    • Being a client / user of Ethermint
    • "giving back" to the software
  • Delegate representation in case of vacation or absence

Code owners need to maintain participation in the process, ideally as members of Concept Approval Committee members, but at the very least as active participants in ADR discussions

Removal criteria:

  • Missing 3 meetings results in ICF evaluating whether the member should be removed / replaced
  • Violation of Code of Conduct

Implementation & Release Approval

The following process should be adhered to both for implementation PRs corresponding to ADRs, as well as for PRs made as part of a release process:

  • Code reviewers should ensure the PR does exactly what the ADR said it should
  • Code reviewers should have more senior engineering capability
  • 1/2 approval is required from the primary repo maintainers in CODEOWNERS

Note: For any major or minor release series denoted as a "Stable Release" (e.g. v0.39 "Launchpad"), a separate release committee is often established. Stable Releases, and their corresponding release committees are documented separately in STABLE_RELEASES.md*