Contributing¶

Welcome to cg635-clock-generator contributor’s guide.

This document focuses on getting any potential contributor familiarized with the development processes, but other kinds of contributions are also appreciated.

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 [1].

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 general issues with cg635-clock-generator, please have a look on the issue tracker. If you don’t see anything useful there, please feel free to fire an issue report or write email (check pypi.org or sources for the address).

Please don’t forget to include the 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 also to simplify the reproduction steps to a very minimal example that still illustrates the problem you are facing. By removing other factors, you help us to identify the root cause of the issue.

You will need an account for this. Check this section.

Documentation Improvements¶

You can help improve cg635-clock-generator docs by making them more readable and coherent, or by adding missing information and correcting mistakes.

cg635-clock-generator documentation uses Sphinx as its main documentation compiler. This means that the docs are kept in the same repository as the project code, and that any documentation update is done in the same way was a code contribution.

We are using CommonMark format.

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

$ uv run poe docs

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

$ python3 -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 on the subject. This often provides additional considerations and avoids unnecessary work.

You will need an account for this. Check this section.

Create an environment¶

Before you start coding, we recommend creating an isolated virtual environment to avoid any problems with your installed Python packages. This project uses uv for dependency management, which will automatically create and manage a virtual environment for you.

Clone the repository¶

Clone this copy to your local disk:

$ git clone git@gitlab.desy.de:leandro.lanzieri/cg635-clock-generator.git
$ cd cg635-clock-generator

Install the project and its dependencies using uv:
```
$ uv sync --all-extras
```
This will create a virtual environment, install all dependencies (including development dependencies), and make the package available for import in editable mode.
Install pre-commit:
```
$ uv run pre-commit install
```
cg635-clock-generator comes with a lot of hooks configured to automatically help the developer to check the code being written.

Implement your changes¶

Create a branch to hold your changes:
```
$ git checkout -b my-feature
```
and start making changes. Never work on the main branch!
Start your work on this branch. Don’t forget to add docstrings to new functions, modules and classes, especially if they are part of public APIs.

The project configuration is centralized in pyproject.toml, which contains all the metadata, dependencies, and tool configurations.
Add yourself to the list of contributors in AUTHORS.md.
When you’re done editing, record your changes in git by running:
```
$ git add <MODIFIED FILES>
$ git commit
```
Please make sure to see the validation messages from pre-commit and fix any eventual issues. This should automatically use ruff to check/fix the code style in a way that is compatible with the project.

Important: Don’t forget to add unit tests and documentation in case your contribution adds an additional feature and is not just a bugfix.

Moreover, writing a descriptive commit message is highly recommended. In case of doubt, you can check the commit history with:
```
$ git log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit --all
```
to look for recurring communication patterns.
Please check that your changes don’t break any unit tests with:
```
$ uv run poe test
```
You can also run other development tasks using the available poe commands:
- uv run poe test - Run unit tests with coverage
- uv run poe test_hil - Run hardware-in-the-loop tests
- uv run poe docs - Build documentation
- uv run poe pre_commit - Run pre-commit hooks on all files

Submit your contribution¶

If everything works fine, push your local branch to GitLab with:
```
$ git push -u origin my-feature
```
Go to the web page of your fork and click “Create merge request” to send your changes for review.

You will need an account for this. Check this section.

Troubleshooting¶

The following tips can be used when facing problems to build or test the package:

Sometimes uv might have issues with cached dependencies. If you find any problems with missing dependencies or version conflicts, try to recreate the virtual environment:
```
uv sync --reinstall
```
This will reinstall all dependencies from scratch.
Make sure to have a reliable uv installation. When in doubt you can run:
```
uv --version
```
If you have trouble with uv, you can try installing it fresh:
```
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
```
Pytest can drop you in an interactive session in the case an error occurs. In order to do that you need to pass a --pdb option (for example by running uv run pytest -k <NAME OF THE FALLING TEST> --pdb). You can also setup breakpoints manually instead of using the --pdb option.

Getting an Account on this GitLab Instance¶

To file issues and merge requests you’ll need an account with https://gitlab.desy.de. If you happen to have a DESY account you can directly sign in. In case you don’t have a DESY account, browse to the sign in page, and click on Helmholtz AAI. There, you can choose different identity providers, including Google and GitHub.