CONTRIBUTING: Add initial documentation for contributors (nix-communi…

…ty#301)

* CONTRIBUTING: Add initial documentation for contributors

* Update CONTRIBUTING.md

Co-authored-by: Gaétan Lepage <33058747+GaetanLepage@users.noreply.github.com>

* Update CONTRIBUTING.md

Co-authored-by: Gaétan Lepage <33058747+GaetanLepage@users.noreply.github.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Gaétan Lepage <33058747+GaetanLepage@users.noreply.github.com>

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+# Contributing (and hacking onto) nixvim
+
+This document is mainly for contributors to nixvim, but it can also be useful for extending nixvim.
+
+## Submitting a change
+
+In order to submit a change you must be careful of several points:
+
+- The code must be properly formatted. This can be done through `nix fmt`.
+- The tests must pass. This can be done through `nix flake check` (this also checks formatting).
+- The change should try to avoid breaking existing configurations.
+- If the change introduces a new feature it should add tests for it (see the architecture section for details).
+
+## Nixvim Architecture
+
+Nixvim is mainly built around `pkgs.neovimUtils.makeNeovimConfig`.
+This function takes a list of plugins (and a few other misc options), and generates a configuration for neovim.
+This can then be passed to `pkgs.wrapNeovimUnstable` to generate a derivation that bundles the plugins, extra programs and the lua configuration.
+
+All the options that nixvim expose end up in those three places. This is done in the `modules/output.nix` file.
+
+The guiding principle of nixvim is too only add to the `init.lua` what the user added to the configuration. This means that we must trim out all the options that were not set.
+
+This is done by making most of the options of the type `types.nullOr ....`, and not setting any option that is null.
+
+### Plugin configurations
+
+Most of nixvim is dedicated to wrapping neovim plugin such that we can configure them in Nix.
+To add a new plugin you need to do the following.
+
+1.  Add a file in the correct sub-directory of [plugins](plugins). This depends on your exact plugin.
+    You will most certainly need the `helpers`, they can be added by doing something like:
+
+    ```nix
+    {
+     lib,
+     pkgs,
+     ...
+    } @ args:
+    let
+     helpers = import ../helpers.nix args;
+    in {
+    }
+    ```
+
+2.  Create the minimal options for a new plugin (in `options.plugins.<plug-name>`:
+
+    - `enable = mkEnableOption ...` to toggle the plugin.
+    - `package = helpers.mkPackageOption ...` to change the package options.
+
+3.  Add the plugin package to the installed plugins if it is enabled. This can be done with the following:
+
+    ```nix
+    {
+        config = let cfg = config.plugins."<plug-name>"; in lib.mkIf cfg.enable {
+            extraPlugins = [cfg.package];
+
+            extraConfigLua = ''
+                <plugin configuration if needed>
+            '';
+        };
+    }
+    ```
+
+You will then need to add Nix options for all (or most) of the upstream plugin options.
+These options should be in `camelCase` (whereas most plugins define their options in `snake_case`), and their names should match exactly (except the case) to the upstream names.
+There are a number of helpers to help you correctly implement them:
+
+- `helpers.mkPlugin`: This helper is useful for simple plugins that are configured through (vim) global variables.
+- `helpers.defaultNullOpts.{mkBool,mkInt,mkStr,...}`: This family of helpers takes a default value and a description, and sets the Nix default to `null`. These are the main functions you should use to define options.
+- `helpers.defaultNullOpts.mkNullable`: This takes a type, a default and a description. This is useful for more complex options.
+- `helpers.rawType`: A type to represent raw lua code. The values are of the form `{ __raw = "<code>";}`. This should not be used if the option can only be raw lua code, `mkStr` should be used in this case.
+
+You will then need to map the Nix options to lua code. This can be done through `helpers.toLuaObject`. This function takes a Nix expression, and converts it to a lua string.
+
+Because the options may not have the same case (and may require some pre-processing before passing it to `toLuaObject`) most options define a `setupOptions` object of the form:
+
+```nix
+{
+  some_opt = cfg.someOpt;
+  some_raw_opt = helpers.ifNonNull' cfg.some_raw_opt (mkRaw cfg.some_raw_opt);
+  some_submodule_opt = with cfg.submoduleOpt;
+    helpers.ifNonNull' cfg.someSubmoduleOpt {
+        inherit some_opt;
+        some_other_opt = someOtherOpt;
+      };
+}
+```
+
+### Tests
+
+Most of the tests of nixvim consist of creating a neovim derivation with the supplied nixvim configuration, and then try to execute neovim to check for any output. All output is considered to be an error.
+
+The tests are located in the [tests/test-sources](tests/test-sources) directory, and should be added to a file in the same hierarchy than the repository. For example if a plugin is defined in `./plugins/ui/foo.nix` the test should be added in `./tests/test-sources/ui/foo.nix`.
+
+Tests can either be a simple attribute set, or a function taking `{pkgs}` as an input. The keys of the set are configuration names, and the values are a nixvim configuration.
+
+You can specify the special `tests` attribute in the configuration that will not be interpreted by nixvim, but only the test runner. The following keys are available:
+
+- `tests.dontRun`: avoid launching this test, simply build the configuration.
+
+The tests are then runnable with `nix flake check`.
+
+There are a second set of tests, unit tests for nixvim itself, defined in `tests/lib-tests.nix` that use the `pkgs.lib.runTests` framework.

README.md

@@ -379,3 +379,7 @@ provided:
 
 If you feel like what you are doing manually should be supported in NixVim,
 please open an issue.
+
+# Contributing
+
+See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md)