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The Odin Project Contributing Guide

Thank you for expressing interest in contributing to The Odin Project (TOP)! Whether you are a first time contributor or you have made several contributions to our repos, please be sure to read this guide thoroughly before contributing as it will lessen the chances of any issues arising during the process.

Note: any pull request created for an issue that already has someone else assigned will be closed without review.

Table of Contents

Curriculum Structure

Between our website, repos, and Discord server, you're bound to see certain terms being used in regard to the curriculum structure. It can be important to keep these terms in mind when referring or contributing to certain parts of our curriculum, both for consistency and to make sure everyone understands what you mean.

  • Path: The broadest level of the curriculum structure. When you first start TOP, you will be on the Foundations path. Upon completion of Foundations, you choose one of two different Full Stack paths to continue down.
  • Course: A path is made up of different courses. A course splits a path into more distinct topics, and each course has its own completion percentage. When asked what course you're on, you might say "I'm on the Getting Hired course!"
  • Section: A course is made up of different sections. A section splits a course into even more distinct topics. When asked what section you're on, you might say "I just started the Basic Ruby section!"
  • Lesson: Finally, a section is made up of different lessons. This is the most specific level of the curriculum structure. This is the exact thing you're currently on. When asked what lesson you're on, you might say "I'm reading through the Webpack lesson!"

Label Meanings

The labels that get applied to issues and PRs in our repos have specific meanings and are broken into two categories: status and type. An issue/PR should only ever have one status label, but can have multiple type labels. The following isn't a complete list, but rather a list of the labels that are more universal across all of our repos.

Status Labels

  • Abandoned: This issue/PR has been abandoned and will not be implemented
  • Accepted: This PR has been accepted and is able to be merged
  • Awaiting Changes: Waiting for requested changes to be made by the contributor
  • Awaiting Response: Waiting for a response from the contributor
  • Discussion: This issue/PR has an ongoing discussion
  • Do Not Merge: This PR should not be merged until further notice
  • Do Not Review: This issue/PR should not be reviewed until further notice
  • Help Wanted: This issue can be assigned to other contributors
  • In Progress: This issue/PR has ongoing work being done
  • Invalid: This issue/PR is invalid or is not relevant
  • Investigating: Something in this issue/PR is being investigated
  • Needs Review: This issue/PR needs an initial or additional review
  • On Hold: There is a temporary hold on any continued work or review
  • Stale: This issue/PR has been inactive for over 30 days and may be closed if inactivity continues
  • Under Review: This issue/PR is being reviewed by at least one maintainer

Type Labels

  • Accessibility: Involves an accessibility feature or requires accessibility review
  • Bug: Involves something that isn't working as intended
  • Chore: Involves changes with no user-facing value, to the build process/internal tooling, refactors, etc.
  • Documentation: Involves an update to the documentation
  • Duplicate: This issue/PR already exists
  • Easy Fix: Involves a minor fix such as grammar, syntax, etc.
  • Enhancement: Involves a new feature or enhancement request
  • Epic: This issue is a larger, unnamed project with several moving parts
  • Good First Issue: Good for beginner contributors
  • Hacktoberfest: This issue is a good Hacktoberfest participation
  • Maintainer Only: This issue is available only to maintainers
  • Priority: This issue/PR should be resolved ASAP

How to Contribute

Simple Issues and Changes: These don't have an overall significant impact on our repos. You can just open an issue or a PR in the appropriate repo. Simple issues and changes can include:

  • Typo or grammar fixes - "I noticed that this sentence in this lesson is using incorrect grammar."
  • Simple syntax errors - "This line of code is missing a closing element tag."
  • Clarifying questions - "This lesson says to use this syntax, but in a previous lesson we were told to use a different syntax. Which is correct?"
  • Other small-scale changes - "I think including an instruction about X could help minimize confusion at this step."

Significant Issues and Changes: These will have a more significant impact on our repos, or require more work to be done in order to resolve the issue or implement the change. You should never submit a PR for a significant issue or change without first getting approval from maintainers, as we don't want your time and work to go to waste if your proposal isn't accepted. You can either open an issue or a discussion in the appropriate repo and wait to receive a response. Keep in mind that maintainers have busy lives - many with day jobs - and may not get to items on our repos immediately.

Significant issues and changes can include:

  • A complete rewrite of a lesson
  • Adding a completely new lesson
  • HTML in lessons is not displaying properly
  • A new feature for the website

Repo Specific Contribution Guides

Each repository may have its own specific contribution guide that pertains only to that repo. You must be sure to read both this general contribution guide and any repo specific contribution guide if one exists.

Curriculum Repo

The TOP curriculum repo contains all of the lessons in our curriculum. Any suggestions or changes to specific lesson content belong there.

Web App Repo

The TOP web app repo contains everything that builds the actual TOP website. Any suggestions or changes related to the structure of the curriculum, styling, or content at the website level belong there.

Exercise Repos

We have 3 primary exercise repos that we link to throughout our curriculum, designed to help users gain an understanding of concepts through practice. Any suggestions or changes to our exercises belong in one of the following repos:

Please do not open pull request (PR) with your solutions to any exercise repo. Your PR will be immediately closed without being merged. The exercise repos are for you to do and keep any work on your own local machine or your personal GitHub.

Before submitting a PR for any of our exercise repos, you must make sure any tests still pass or that any images showing desired outcomes are still accurate.

Odin-Bot Repo

Our Odin-bot repo is where the everyone's favorite Discord bot lives. Any changes or suggestions for the Odin-bot belong there.

Check Before Doing Anything

It's important that you look through any open issues or pull requests in a repo before attempting to submit a new issue or work on a change, regardless of the complexity. This will help avoid any duplicates from being made, as well as prevent more than one person working on the same thing at the same time.

If your proposal already exists in an open issue or PR, but you feel there are details missing, comment on the issue/PR to let those involved know of those missing details.

Being Assigned an Issue

If you would like to work on an existing issue in a repo:

  1. Find an issue that is not currently assigned to anyone.

    • A couple of good places to start are issues with the Status: Help Wanted or Type: Good First Issue labels. You can filter the issues list to only show ones with these (or any) specific labels to make them easier to find.
    • You can also filter out any issues with the Status: In Progress label, so that you only see issues that haven't been assigned to anyone.

  2. Ask to be assigned the issue by a maintainer.

    • If you are not a maintainer, do not give others permission to work on an issue

  3. Wait to be assigned the issue before starting any work.

  4. After being assigned, address each item listed in the acceptance criteria, if any exist.

    • If an issue doesn't have any acceptance criteria, feel free to go about resolving the issue however you wish. You can also ask the maintainer that assigned you the issue if there are any specific acceptance criteria.

Creating an Issue

  1. If you would like to make a simple change that is not part of an existing issue, you are welcome to skip the next step and just submit a PR with your proposed change(s).

  2. Create a new issue and read the issue template in its entirety and fill out all applicable sections. If you aren't sure how to create an issue, you can read the GitHub documentation on creating an issue from a repository.

    • The title of the issue must follow the format described in the issue template.
    • If you would like to be assigned the issue you are creating, complete the applicable checkbox in the issue template. Note that this does not guarantee that you will be assigned the issue, but rather it lets maintainers know that you are interested.
    • The more information you are able to provide in your issue, the better.
    • Ensure you create the issue in the right repo; some of the repos are:

Setting Up Your Local Clone

Before you begin working on anything, make sure you follow these steps in order to set up a clone on your local machine:

  1. Fork the repo you would like to work on to your own GitHub account. If you don't know how to do so, follow the GitHub documentation on how to fork a repo.

  2. Clone the forked repo to your local machine with one of the commands below. Be sure the <your username> text is replaced with your actual GitHub username, and the <repo name> with the actual repo name. You can also read the GitHub documentation on cloning a repository.

    # If you have SSH set up with Git:
git clone [email protected]:<your username>/<repo name>.git
# Otherwise for HTTPS:
git clone https://github.com/<your username>/<repo name>.git

# An example:
git clone [email protected]:Odinson/css-exercises.git

  3. cd into the directory of your local clone, then set the upstream remote so you can keep your local clone synced with TOP's original repo. The <repo name> below should be the same as the one you used when creating your local clone in the previous step.

    # If you have SSH set up with Git:
git remote add upstream [email protected]:TheOdinProject/<repo name>.git
# Otherwise for HTTPS:
git remote add upstream https://github.com/TheOdinProject/<repo name>.git

# An example:
git remote add upstream https://github.com/TheOdinProject/css-exercises.git

Working on an Issue

Once you have the repo forked and cloned, and the upstream remote has been set, you can begin working on your issue:

  1. Create a new branch, replacing the <your branch name> with an actual branch name that briefly explains the purpose of the branch in some way:

    git checkout -b <your branch name>

# Some examples:
git checkout -b flex_exercise_hints
git checkout -b knowledge_check_updates
git checkout -b fix_link_text

  2. Add commits as you work on your issue, replacing the <your commit message> text with your actual commit message:

    git commit -m "<your commit message>"

# An example:
git commit -m "Update solution files"

  3. Sync your work with the upstream remote every so often. Follow the ongoing workflow instructions in our Using Git in the Real World lesson.

  4. Push your branch to your forked repo, replacing the <your branch name> with the branch you've been working on locally:

    git push origin <your branch name>

# An example:
git push origin flex_exercises

Opening a Pull Request

  1. After pushing your changes, go to your forked repo on GitHub and click the "Compare & pull request" button. If you have multiples of this button, be sure you click the one for the correct branch.

    • If you don't see this button, you can click the branch dropdown menu and then select the branch you just pushed from your local clone:

      GitHub branch dropdown menu

    • Once you have switched to the correct branch on GitHub, click the "Contribute" dropdown and then click the "Open pull request" button.

  2. Read the PR template in its entirety before filling it out and submitting a PR. Not filling out the template correctly will delay a PR getting merged.

    • If a checkbox is not required and is not applicable to your PR, do not complete it. For example, if you submit a PR to our main TOP repo that only involves making changes to documentation, you would not need to run any tests.
    • The title of the PR must follow the format described in the PR template.
    • If the PR is meant to close an open issue, you must link that issue in Step 1 of the PR template. This can be done either by replacing the XXXXX with the issue number, e.g. Closes #2013, or if the issue is in another TOP repo replacing the #XXXXX with the URL of the issue, e.g. Closes https://github.com/TheOdinProject/curriculum/issues/XXXXX. This streamlines the issue closing process, as an issue that is linked to a PR will be closed when that PR gets merged.
    • If the PR is not part of an open issue, be sure to describe the reason(s) for the change(s) in more detail in Step 1 of the PR template, as well as outlining the changes made in the PR in Step 2.

  3. At this point a maintainer will either leave general comments, request changes, or approve and merge your PR.

    • It is important to respond to any comments or requested changes in a timely manner, otherwise your PR may be closed without being merged due to inactivity.

    • After pushing any requested changes to the branch you opened the PR with, be sure to re-request a review from the maintainer that requested those changes at the top of the right sidebar (this will only appear when a maintainer is assigned as a reviewer or has requested changes):

      Reviewers section of GitHub's sidebar

Further Help

Please let us know if you require any further help with any of the steps in this guide by creating an issue in the relevant repository. If you need help with creating an issue GitHub has a guide on how to do so. For questions not covered by this guide you can also join our Discord.