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CONTRIBUTING.md

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Contributing

Thank you for considering making contributions to Cosmos SDK and related repositories!

Contributing to this repo can mean many things such as participating in discussion or proposing code changes. To ensure a smooth workflow for all contributors, the general procedure for contributing has been established:

  1. Start by browsing new issue and discussions. If you are looking for something interesting or if you have something in your mind, there is a chance it was has been discussed.
  • Looking for a good place to start contributing? How about checking out some good first issues?
  1. Determine whether a GitHub issue or discussion is more appropriate for your needs:
  2. If want to propose something new that requires specification or an additional design, or you would like to change a process, start with a new discussion. With discussions, we can better handle the design process using discussion threads. A discussion usually leads to one or more issues.
  3. If the issue you want addressed is a specific proposal or a bug, then open a new issue.
  4. Review existing issues to find an issue you'd like to help with.
  5. Participate in thoughtful discussion on that issue.
  6. If you would like to contribute:
    1. Ensure that the proposal has been accepted.
    2. Ensure that nobody else has already begun working on this issue. If they have, make sure to contact them to collaborate.
    3. If nobody has been assigned for the issue and you would like to work on it, make a comment on the issue to inform the community of your intentions to begin work.
  7. To submit your work as a contribution to the repository follow standard GitHub best practices. See pull request guideline below.

**Note: ** For very small or blatantly obvious problems such as typos, you are not required to an open issue to submit a PR, but be aware that for more complex problems/features, if a PR is opened before an adequate design discussion has taken place in a GitHub issue, that PR runs a high likelihood of being rejected.

Architecture Decision Records (ADR)

When proposing an architecture decision for the SDK, please start by opening an issue or a discussion with a summary of the proposal. Once the proposal has been discussed and there is rough alignment on a high-level approach to the design, the ADR creation process can begin. We are following this process to ensure all involved parties are in agreement before any party begins coding the proposed implementation. If you would like to see examples of how these are written, please refer to the current ADRs.

Development Procedure

  • The latest state of development is on master.
  • master must never fail make lint test test-race.
  • No --force onto master (except when reverting a broken commit, which should seldom happen).
  • Create a branch to start a wok:
    • Fork the repo (core developers must create a branch directly in the Cosmos SDK repo), branch from the HEAD of master, make some commits, and submit a PR to master.
    • For core developers working within the cosmos-sdk repo, follow branch name conventions to ensure a clear ownership of branches: {moniker}/{issue#}-branch-name.
    • See Branching Model for more details.
  • Please make sure to run make format before every commit - the easiest way to do this is have your editor run it for you upon saving a file (most of the editors will do it anyway using a pre-configured setup of the programming language mode). Additionally please ensure that your code is lint compliant by running make lint-fix. A convenience git pre-commit hook that runs the formatters automatically before each commit is available in the contrib/githooks/ directory.
  • Follow the CODING GUIDELINES, which defines criteria for designing and coding a software.

Code is merged into master through pull request procedure.

Testing

Tests can be ran by running make test at the top level of the SDK repository.

Pull Requests

Before submitting a pull request:

  • merge the latest master git merge origin/master,
  • run make lint test to ensure that all checks and tests pass.

Then:

  1. If you have something to show, start with a Draft PR. It's good to have early validation of your work and we highly recommend this practice. A Draft PR also indicates to the community that the work is in progress. Draft PRs also helps the core team provide early feedback and ensure the work is in the right direction.
  2. When the code is complete, change your PR from Draft to Ready for Review.
  3. Go through the actions for each checkbox present in the PR template description. The PR actions are automatically provided for each new PR.
  4. Be sure to include a relevant changelog entry in the Unreleased section of CHANGELOG.md (see file for log format).

PRs must have a category prefix that is based on the type of changes being made (for example, fix, feat, refactor, docs, and so on). The type must be included in the PR title as a prefix (for example, fix: <description>). This convention ensures that all changes that are committed to the base branch follow the Conventional Commits specification. Additionally, each PR should only address a single issue.

Pull requests are merged automatically using automerge action.

NOTE: when merging, GitHub will squash commits and rebase on top of the master.

Pull Request Templates

There are three PR templates. The default template is for types fix, feat, and refactor. We also have a docs template for documentation changes and an other template for changes that do not affect production code. When previewing a PR before it has been opened, you can change the template by adding one of the following parameters to the url:

  • template=docs.md
  • template=other.md

Requesting Reviews

In order to accommodate the review process, the author of the PR must complete the author checklist (from the pull request template) to the best of their abilities before marking the PR as "Ready for Review". If you would like to receive early feedback on the PR, open the PR as a "Draft" and leave a comment in the PR indicating that you would like early feedback and tagging whoever you would like to receive feedback from.

Codeowners are marked automatically as the reviewers.

All PRs require at least two review approvals before they can be merged (one review might be acceptable in the case of minor changes to docs or other changes that do not affect production code). Each PR template has a reviewers checklist that must be completed before the PR can be merged. Each reviewer is responsible for all checked items unless they have indicated otherwise by leaving their handle next to specific items. In addition, use the following review explanations:

  • LGTM without an explicit approval means that the changes look good, but you haven't thoroughly reviewed the reviewer checklist items.
  • Approval means that you have completed some or all of the reviewer checklist items. If you only reviewed selected items, you must add your handle next to the items that you have reviewed. In addition, follow these guidelines:
    • You must also think through anything which ought to be included but is not
    • You must think through whether any added code could be partially combined (DRYed) with existing code
    • You must think through any potential security issues or incentive-compatibility flaws introduced by the changes
    • Naming must be consistent with conventions and the rest of the codebase
    • Code must live in a reasonable location, considering dependency structures (for example, not importing testing modules in production code, or including example code modules in production code).
    • If you approve the PR, you are responsible for any issues mentioned here and any issues that should have been addressed after thoroughly reviewing the reviewer checklist items in the pull request template.
  • If you sat down with the PR submitter and did a pairing review, add this information in the Approval or your PR comments.
  • If you are only making "surface level" reviews, submit notes as a comment review.

Updating Documentation

If you open a PR on the Cosmos SDK, it is mandatory to update the relevant documentation in /docs.

  • If your change relates to the core SDK (baseapp, store, ...), be sure to update the content in docs/basics/, docs/core/ and/or docs/building-modules/ folders.
  • If your changes relate to the core of the CLI (not specifically to module's CLI/Rest), then modify the content in the docs/run-node/ folder.
  • If your changes relate to a module, then be sure to update the module's spec in x/moduleName/docs/spec/.

When writing documentation, follow the Documentation Writing Guidelines.

Dependencies

We use Go Modules to manage dependency versions.

The master branch of every Cosmos repository should just build with go get, which means they should be kept up-to-date with their dependencies, so we can get away with telling people they can just go get our software.

Since some dependencies are not under our control, a third party may break our build, in which case we can fall back on go mod tidy -v.

Protobuf

We use Protocol Buffers along with gogoproto to generate code for use in Cosmos-SDK.

For determinstic behavior around Protobuf tooling, everything is containerized using Docker. Make sure to have Docker installed on your machine, or head to Docker's website to install it.

For formatting code in .proto files, you can run make proto-format command.

For linting and checking breaking changes, we use buf. You can use the commands make proto-lint and make proto-check-breaking to respectively lint your proto files and check for breaking changes.

To generate the protobuf stubs, you can run make proto-gen.

We also added the make proto-all command to run all the above commands sequentially.

In order for imports to properly compile in your IDE, you may need to manually set your protobuf path in your IDE's workspace settings/config.

For example, in vscode your .vscode/settings.json should look like:

{
    "protoc": {
        "options": [
        "--proto_path=${workspaceRoot}/proto",
        "--proto_path=${workspaceRoot}/third_party/proto"
        ]
    }
}

Branching Model and Release

User-facing repos should adhere to the trunk based development branching model: https://trunkbaseddevelopment.com/. User branches should start with a user name, example: {moniker}/{issue#}-branch-name.

The Cosmos SDK repository is a multi Go module repository. It means that we have more than one Go module in a single repository.

The Cosmos SDK utilizes semantic versioning.

PR Targeting

Ensure that you base and target your PR on the master branch.

All feature additions and all bug fixes must be targeted against master. Exception is for bug fixes which are only related to a released version. In that case, the related bug fix PRs must target against the release branch.

If needed, we backport a commit from master to a release branch (excluding consensus breaking feature, API breaking and similar).

Major Release Procedure

A major release is an increment of the first number (eg: v1.2 → v2.0.0) or the _point number (eg: v1.1 → v1.2.0, also called point release).

TL;DR before making a new major release we do beta and release candidate releases. For example, for release 1.0.0:

v1.0.0-beta1 → v1.0.0-beta2 → ... → v1.0.0-rc1 → v1.0.0-rc2 → ... → v1.0.0
  • Release a first beta version on the master branch and freeze master from receiving any new features. After beta is released, we focus on releasing the release candidate:
    • finish audits and reviews
    • kick off a large round of simulation testing (e.g. 400 seeds for 2k blocks)
    • perform functional tests
    • add more tests
    • release new beta version as the bugs are discovered and fixed.
  • After the team feels that the master works fine we create a release/vY branch (going forward known a release branch), where Y is the version number, with the patch part substituted to x (eg: 0.42.x, 1.0.x). Ensure the release branch is protected so that pushes against the release branch are permitted only by the release manager or release coordinator.
    • PRs targeting this branch can be merged only when exceptional circumstances arise
    • update the GitHub mergify integration by adding instructions for automatically backporting commits from master to the release/vY using the backport/Y label.
  • In the release branch, prepare a new version section in the CHANGELOG.md
    • All links must be link-ified: $ python ./scripts/linkify_changelog.py CHANGELOG.md
    • Copy the entries into a RELEASE_CHANGELOG.md, this is needed so the bot knows which entries to add to the release page on GitHub.
  • Create a new annotated git tag for a release candidate (eg: git tag -a v1.1.0-rc1) in the release branch.
    • from this point we unfreeze master.
    • the SDK teams collaborate and do their best to run testnets in order to validate the release.
    • when bugs are found, create a PR for master, and backport fixes to the release branch.
    • create new release candidate tags after bugs are fixed.
  • After the team feels the release branch is stable and everything works, create a full release:
    • update CHANGELOG.md.
    • create a new annotated git tag (eg git -a v1.1.0) in the release branch.
    • Create a GitHub release.

Following semver philosophy, point releases after v1.0:

  • must not break API
  • can break consensus

Before v1.0, point release can break both point API and consensus.

Path Release Procedure

A patch release is an increment of the patch number (eg: v1.2.0 → v1.2.1).

Patch release must not break API nor consensus.

Updates to the release branch should come from master by backporting PRs (usually done by automatic cherry pick followed by a PRs to the release branch). The backports must be marked using backport/Y label in PR for master. It is the PR author's responsibility to fix merge conflicts, update changelog entries, and ensure CI passes. If a PR originates from an external contributor, a core team member assumes responsibility to perform this process instead of the original author. Lastly, it is core team's responsibility to ensure that the PR meets all the SRU criteria.

Point Release must follow the Stable Release Policy.

After the release branch has all commits required for the next patch release:

  • update CHANGELOG.md.
  • create a new annotated git tag (eg git -a v1.1.0) in the release branch.
  • Create a GitHub release.

Code Owner Membership

In the ethos of open source projects, and out of necessity to keep the code alive, the core contributor team will strive to permit special repo privileges to developers who show an aptitude towards developing with this code base.

Several different kinds of privileges may be granted however most common privileges to be granted are merge rights to either part of, or the entirety of the code base (through the GitHub CODEOWNERS file). The on-boarding process for new code owners is as follows: On a bi-monthly basis (or more frequently if agreeable) all the existing code owners will privately convene to discuss potential new candidates as well as the potential for existing code-owners to exit or "pass on the torch". This private meeting is to be a held as a phone/video meeting.

Subsequently after the meeting, and pending final approval from the ICF, one of the existing code owners should open a PR modifying the CODEOWNERS file. The other code owners should then all approve this PR to publicly display their support.

Only if unanimous consensus is reached among all the existing code-owners will an invitation be extended to a new potential-member. Likewise, when an existing member is suggested to be removed/or have their privileges reduced, the member in question must agree on the decision for their removal or else no action should be taken. If however, a code-owner is demonstrably shown to intentionally have had acted maliciously or grossly negligent, code-owner privileges may be stripped with no prior warning or consent from the member in question.

Other potential removal criteria:

  • Missing 3 scheduled meetings results in ICF evaluating whether the member should be removed / replaced
  • Violation of Code of Conduct

Earning this privilege should be considered to be no small feat and is by no means guaranteed by any quantifiable metric. Serving as a code owner is a symbol of great trust from the community of this project.

Concept & Feature Approval Process

The process for how Cosmos SDK maintainers take features and ADRs from concept to release is broken up into three distinct stages: Strategy Discovery, Concept Approval, and Implementation & Release Approval

Strategy Discovery

  • Develop long term priorities, strategy and roadmap for the SDK
  • Release committee not yet defined as there is already a roadmap that can be used for the time being

Concept Approval

  • Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) may be proposed by any contributors or maintainers of the Cosmos SDK, and should follow the guidelines outlined in the ADR Creation Process
  • After proposal, a time bound period for Request for Comment (RFC) on ADRs commences
  • ADRs are intended to be iterative, and may be merged into master while still in a Proposed status

Time Bound Period

  • Once a PR for an ADR is opened, reviewers are expected to perform a first review within 1 week of pull request being open
  • Time bound period for individual ADR Pull Requests to be merged should not exceed 2 weeks
  • Total time bound period for an ADR to reach a decision (ABANDONED | ACCEPTED | REJECTED) should not exceed 4 weeks

If an individual Pull Request for an ADR needs more time than 2 weeks to reach resolution, it should be merged in current state (Draft or Proposed), with its contents updated to summarize the current state of its discussion.

If an ADR is taking longer than 4 weeks to reach a final conclusion, the Concept Approval Committee should convene to rectify the situation by either:

  • unanimously setting a new time bound period for this ADR
  • making changes to the Concept Approval Process (as outlined here)
  • making changes to the members of the Concept Approval Committee

Approval Committee & Decision Making

In absence of general consensus, decision making requires 1/2 vote from the two members of the Concept Approval Committee.

Committee Members

  • Core Members: Aaron (Regen), Bez (IG)

Committee Criteria

Members must:

  • Participate in all or almost all ADR discussions, both on GitHub as well as in bi-weekly Architecture Review meetings
  • Be active contributors to the SDK, and furthermore should be continuously making substantial contributions to the project's codebase, review process, documentation and ADRs
  • Have stake in the Cosmos SDK project, represented by:
    • Being a client / user of the Comsos SDK
    • "giving back" to the software
  • Delegate representation in case of vacation or absence

Code owners need to maintain participation in the process, ideally as members of Concept Approval Committee members, but at the very least as active participants in ADR discussions

Removal criteria:

  • Missing 3 meetings results in ICF evaluating whether the member should be removed / replaced
  • Violation of Code of Conduct

Implementation & Release Approval

The following process should be adhered to both for implementation PRs corresponding to ADRs, as well as for PRs made as part of a release process:

  • Code reviewers should ensure the PR does exactly what the ADR said it should
  • Code reviewers should have more senior engineering capability
  • 1/2 approval is required from the primary repo maintainers in CODEOWNERS

Note: For any major release series denoted as a "Stable Release" (e.g. v0.39 "Launchpad"), a separate release committee is often established. Stable Releases, and their corresponding release committees are documented separately in STABLE_RELEASES.md*