Contributing
Contributions are welcomed via pull requests on GitHub. Contact the HOOMD-blue developers before starting work to ensure it meshes well with the planned development direction and standards set for the project.
Features
Implement functionality in a general and flexible fashion
New features should be applicable to a variety of use-cases. The HOOMD-blue developers can assist you in designing flexible interfaces.
Maintain performance of existing code paths
Expensive code paths should only execute when requested.
Optimize for the current GPU generation
Write, test, and optimize your GPU kernels on the latest generation of GPUs.
Version control
Base your work off the correct branch
Base backwards compatible bug fixes on
trunk-patch
.Base additional functionality on
trunk-minor
.Base API incompatible changes on
trunk-major
.
Agree to the Contributor Agreement
All contributors must agree to the Contributor Agreement before their pull request can be merged.
Source code
Use a consistent style
The Code style section of the documentation sets the style guidelines for HOOMD-blue code.
Document code with comments
Use doxygen header comments for classes, functions, etc. Also comment complex sections of code so that other developers can understand them.
Compile without warnings
Your changes should compile without warnings.
Tests
Write unit tests
Add unit tests for all new functionality.
Validity tests
The developer should run research-scale simulations using the new functionality and ensure that it behaves as intended.
User documentation
Write user documentation
Document public-facing API with Python docstrings in Google style.
Document version status
Add versionadded, versionchanged, and deprecated Sphinx directives to each user-facing Python class, method, etc., so that users will be aware of how functionality changes from version to version. Remove this when breaking APIs in major releases.
Add developer to the credits
Update the credits documentation to list the name and affiliation of each individual that has contributed to the code.
Propose a change log entry
Propose a short concise entry describing the change in the pull request description.