Contributing guidelines

Thank you for your interest in contributing to EvalAI! Here are a few pointers on how you can help.

Setting things up

To set up the development environment, follow the instructions in our README.

Finding something to work on

EvalAI’s issue tracker is good place to start. If you find something that interests you, comment on the thread and we’ll help get you started.

Alternatively, if you come across a new bug on the site, please file a new issue and comment if you would like to be assigned. Existing issues are tagged with one or more labels, based on the part of the website it touches, its importance etc., which can help you select one.

If neither of these seem appealing, please post on our channel and we will help find you something else to work on.

Instructions to submit code

Before you submit code, please talk to us via the issue tracker so we know you are working on it.

Our central development branch is development. Coding is done on feature branches based off of development and merged into it once stable and reviewed. To submit code, follow these steps:

  1. Create a new branch off of development. Select a descriptive branch name. We highly encourage you to use autopep8 to follow the PEP8 styling. Run the following command before creating the pull request:

    autopep8 --in-place --exclude venv,docs --recursive .

git fetch upstream
git checkout master
git merge upstream/master
git checkout -b your-branch-name

  2. Commit and push code to your branch:

    • Commits should be self-contained and contain a descriptive commit message.

    • Please make sure your code is well-formatted and adheres to PEP8 conventions (for Python) and the airbnb style guide (for JavaScript). For others (Lua, prototxt etc.) please ensure that the code is well-formatted and the style consistent.

    • Please ensure that your code is well tested.

      git commit -a -m “{{commit_message}}”
git push origin {{branch_name}}

  3. Once the code is pushed, create a pull request:

    • On your Github fork, select your branch and click “New pull request”. Select “master” as the base branch and your branch in the “compare” dropdown. If the code is mergeable (you get a message saying “Able to merge”), go ahead and create the pull request.
    • Check back after some time to see if the Travis checks have passed, if not you should click on “Details” link on your PR thread at the right of “The Travis CI build failed”, which will take you to the dashboard for your PR. You will see what failed / stalled, and will need to resolve them.
    • If your checks have passed, your PR will be assigned a reviewer who will review your code and provide comments. Please address each review comment by pushing new commits to the same branch (the PR will automatically update, so you don’t need to submit a new one). Once you are done, comment below each review comment marking it as “Done”. Feel free to use the thread to have a discussion about comments that you don’t understand completely or don’t agree with.
    • Once all comments are addressed, the reviewer will give an LGTM (‘looks good to me’) and merge the PR.

Congratulations, you have successfully contributed to Project EvalAI!