Contributing¶

Welcome to rat-trig contributor’s guide.

This document focuses on getting any potential contributor familiarized with development processes. All kinds of contributions are appreciated, including bug reports, documentation, and code improvements.

If you are new to using git or have never collaborated in a project previously, please have a look at contribution-guide.org. Other resources are also listed in the excellent guide created by FreeCodeCamp.

Please notice, all users and contributors are expected to be open, considerate, reasonable, and respectful. When in doubt, Python Software Foundation’s Code of Conduct is a good reference in terms of behavior guidelines.

Issue Reports¶

If you experience bugs or have general issues with rat-trig, please have a look at the issue tracker. If you don’t see anything useful there, please feel free to create an issue report.

Tip

Please don’t forget to include closed issues in your search. Sometimes a solution was already reported, and the problem is considered solved.

New issue reports should include information about your programming environment (e.g., operating system, Python version) and steps to reproduce the problem. Please try to simplify reproduction steps to a minimal example that still illustrates the problem you’re facing. By removing other factors, you help us identify the root cause of the issue.

Documentation Improvements¶

You can help improve rat-trig docs by making them more readable and coherent, or by adding missing information and correcting mistakes.

rat-trig documentation uses Sphinx with MyST extensions. Documentation is kept in the same repository as the project code, and documentation updates are done the same way as code contributions.

When working on documentation changes in your local machine, you can compile them using tox:

tox -e docs

and use Python’s built-in web server for a preview in your web browser (http://localhost:8000):

python -m http.server --directory docs/_build/html

Code Contributions¶

Submit an Issue¶

Before you work on any non-trivial code contribution, it’s best to first create a report in the issue tracker to start a discussion. This often provides additional considerations and avoids unnecessary work.

Create an Environment¶

Before you start coding, we recommend creating an isolated virtual environment to avoid problems with your installed Python packages.

Using Miniconda:

conda create -n rat-trig python=3.11
conda activate rat-trig

Or using virtualenv:

virtualenv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

Clone the Repository¶

  1. Create a user account on GitHub if you do not already have one.

  2. Fork the repository: click on the Fork button near the top of the page. This creates a copy of the code under your account on GitHub.

  3. Clone this copy to your local disk:

git clone https://github.com/YourLogin/rat-trig.git
cd rat-trig

  1. Install the package in development mode:

pip install -e .

  1. Install development dependencies and pre-commit:

pip install -r requirements/test.txt
pip install pre-commit
pre-commit install

rat-trig comes with pre-commit hooks configured to automatically check code quality. These will run:

  • flake8 - code style and linting

  • black - code formatting

  • isort - import sorting

  • mypy - type checking (Python 3.12)

Implement Your Changes¶

  1. Create a branch to hold your changes:

git checkout -b my-feature

and start making changes. Never work on the main branch!

  1. Start your work on this branch. Don’t forget to add docstrings to new functions, modules, and classes, especially if they’re part of public APIs. Include usage examples with >>> for doctests.

  2. When you’re done editing, do:

git add <MODIFIED FILES>
git commit

to record your changes in git.

Make sure to address any validation messages from pre-commit. The hooks will automatically use flake8, black, and isort to check/fix code style.

Important

Don’t forget to add unit tests for new features or bugfixes.

Moreover, writing a descriptive commit message is highly recommended. Use conventional commit format (e.g., feat: add new function, fix: correct spread calculation, docs: update README). Check the commit history with:

git log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit --all

to look for recurring communication patterns.

  1. Please check that your changes don’t break any unit tests with:

pytest

Or run the full test suite with coverage:

pytest --cov rat_trig

You can also use tox to run several other pre-configured tasks:

tox -av  # List all available tox environments

Submit Your Contribution¶

  1. If everything works fine, push your local branch to the remote server:

git push -u origin my-feature

  1. Go to the web page of your fork and click “Create Pull Request” to send your changes for review.

Review Process¶

  • Automated CI/CD tests will run on your PR (linting, tests, type checking)

  • Maintainers will review your code for:

    • Mathematical correctness

    • Code quality and style

    • Test coverage

    • Documentation

  • Address review comments in follow-up commits

  • Once approved, your PR will be merged into main

Troubleshooting¶

The following tips can help when facing problems building or testing the package:

  1. Tag issues: Make sure to fetch all tags from upstream. The command git describe --abbrev=0 --tags should return the expected version. If you’re trying to run CI scripts in a fork, make sure to push all tags.

  2. Clean builds: Sometimes tox misses out when new dependencies are added. Try recreating the tox environment with the -r flag:

tox -r -e docs  # Instead of tox -e docs

  1. Python version: Ensure you have a reliable tox installation using the correct Python version (3.11+). Check with:

tox --version

  1. Debugging tests: Pytest can drop you in an interactive session in case an error occurs. To do this, pass a --pdb option:

pytest --k <NAME_OF_FAILING_TEST> --pdb

Maintainer Tasks¶

Releases¶

If you’re part of the maintainer group with PyPI permissions, follow these steps to release a new version:

  1. Make sure all unit tests are successful.

  2. Update CHANGELOG.md with version details.

  3. Tag the current commit on main branch with a release tag, e.g., v1.2.3.

  4. Push the new tag to the upstream repository:

git push upstream v1.2.3

  1. Clean up dist and build folders:

tox -e clean

  1. Build the package:

tox -e build

Check that files in dist have the correct version (no .dirty or git hash) and reasonable sizes.

  1. Publish to PyPI:

tox -e publish -- --repository pypi