Contributing to Doubtfire Astro Repository

This guide provides high-level details on how to contribute to the Doubtfire repositories. This repository reflects the code for Ontrack documentation website.

The Ontrack documentation website is a centralised repository for recording all technical documentation for Ontrack project.

Background

The doubtfire-astro project provides the base repository containing information on technical document for OnTrack project.

The OnTrack project contains following submodules:

• doubtfire-api contain the backend RESTful API. This uses Rails' active model with the Grape REST api framework.
• doubtfire-web hosts the frontend code implemented in Angular and AngularJS. This implements the web application that connects to the backend api.
• doubtfire-overseer provides facilities to run automated tasks on student submissions. Please get in touch with the core team if you want access to this repository.

Working on onTrack documentation website

To get started:

1. Fork doubtfire-astro

   To push your contributions, you will need a fork of each repository. Contributions can then be made by making pull requests back into the main repositories.

2. Clone your doubtfire-astro.

   git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/doubtfire-astro

3. Open the cloned repository in VS code

• Open VS code
• Navigate to File and select Open folder
• Select the folder where you have cloned this repository
• you will be able to see all the files now

4. To make changes/ add content to OnTrack Technical documentation website

• Go to the scr folder
• New Pages can be added or changes to existing pages can be made by navigating to content folder
• Images are required to be stored under assets folder

5. Note - when adding new pages you would need to do following

• Make changes to content and also the astro.config.mjs file in parallel e.g. We have a page for backend API list api_list.md the path of this needs to be mention in astro.config.mjs file

  items: [
            {
              label: 'Doubtfire API Documentation List',
              link: '/backend/api/api_list',
            },
        ]
  

6. To see changes and verify changes being made are reflecting in Website follow the below steps:

• Open node terminal in your VS code project
• Run the command npm run dev
• This will load the website locally
• For any additional commands on Starlight refer to starlight.md

Pushing changes to Thoth Tech doubtfire-astro repository

To start work on a new feature.

1. Make your changes in locally
2. Create a draft Pull Request and document the change you are working on. Doing this early will make sure that you get feedback on your work quickly.
3. Complete your work, pushing to your fork's feature branch. This will update your existing PR (no need to create new PRs)
4. Update the status of your PR removing the draft status, and flag someone in the Core team to review and incorporate your work.
5. Address any changes required. Pushing new commits to your branch to update the PR as needed.
6. Once your PR is merged you can delete your feature branch and repeat this process for new features...

Ensure you have your author credentials set up

You should ensure your git user config details are set to the email address you use with GitHub:

git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
git config --global user.name "Freddy Smith"

Key Github commands

Step 1. Make changes, and repeat until you are done:

$ git add ... ; git commit ; git push     # make changes, commit, and push to origin

Step 2. Submit a pull request and if unable to merge:

$ git pull --ff upstream <add branch name>      # merge upstream's branch in your feature branch
$ git add ... ; git commit                # resolve merge conflicts and commit
$ git push origin                         # push your merge conflict resolution to origin

Commit Message Format

We have precise rules over how our Git commit messages must be formatted. This format makes it easier to read the commit history.

Each commit message consists of a header, a body, and a footer.

<header>
<BLANK LINE>
<body>
<BLANK LINE>
<footer>

The header is mandatory and must conform to the Commit Message Header format.

The body is recommended for all commits. When the body is present, it must be at least 20 characters long and conform to the Commit Message Body format.

The footer is optional. The Commit Message Footer format describes the purpose and structure of the footer.

Any line of the commit message should be 100 characters or fewer.

Commit Message Header
<type>(<scope>): <short summary>
  │       │             │
  │       │             └─⫸ Summary in present tense. Not capitalized. No period at the end.
  │       │
  │       └─⫸ Commit Scope (optional): animations|common|style|forms|http|router|service-worker|
  │                                     upgrade|changelog|dev-infra|docs-infra|migrations|
  │
  └─⫸ Commit Type: build|ci|docs|feat|fix|perf|refactor|test

The <type> and <summary> fields are mandatory, the (<scope>) field is optional.

The <type> must be one of the following:

• build: Changes that affect the build system or external dependencies (example scopes: gulp, broccoli, npm)
• ci: Changes to our CI configuration files and scripts (example scopes: Circle, BrowserStack, SauceLabs)
• docs: Documentation only changes
• feat: A new feature
• fix: A bug fix
• perf: A code change that improves performance
• refactor: A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature
• test: Adding missing tests or correcting existing tests

We recommend reading Chris Beam's post on How to Write Good Commit Messages.

Use the imperative mood in your commit subject line

Write your commits in the imperative mood and not the indicative mood

• "Fix a bug" and not "Fixed a bug"
• "Change the behaviour of Y" and not "Changed the behaviour of Y"
• "Add new API methods" and not "Sweet new API methods"

Keep the subject line (top line) concise; keep it within 50 characters.

Use the body (lines after the top line) to explain why and what and not how; keep it within 72 characters.

But how can I write new lines if I'm using git commit -m "Message"?

Don't use the -m switch. Use a text editor to write your commit message instead.