Contributing

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

You can contribute in many ways:

Types of Contributions

Report Bugs

Report bugs at https://github.com/mbsantiago/whombat/issues.

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

• Your operating system name and version.
• Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting.
• Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.

Fix Bugs

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with "bug" and "help wanted" is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Implement Features

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with "enhancement" and "help wanted" is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation

Whombat could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official Whombat docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

Submit Feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue at https://github.com/mbsantiago/whombat/issues.

If you are proposing a feature:

• Explain in detail how it would work.
• Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
• Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)

Get Started

This guide focuses on backend development. If you are working across both the backend and frontend, use the root-level workflows in the repository README.md.

Ready to contribute? Here's how to set up whombat for local development.

1. Fork the whombat repo on GitHub.

2. Clone your fork locally

   git clone git@github.com:your_name_here/whombat.git
   

3. We recommend the use of uv to manage the dev environment, and just to run local tasks. Once they are installed, move into the backend directory and install the backend dependencies:

   ```{bash}
   cd whombat/back
   uv sync --all-extras --dev --locked
   ```
   

If you are working across the full repository, you can instead install all backend and frontend dependencies from the repository root:

    ```{bash}
    cd whombat
    just install
    ```

1. Create a branch for local development

   git checkout -b name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature
   

Now you can make your changes locally.

1. When you're done making changes, check that your changes pass all lints and tests.

   ```{bash}
   just check
   ```
   

To run only backend type checks:

    ```{bash}
    just typecheck
    ```

1. Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub

   git add .
   git commit -m "Your detailed description of your changes."
   git push origin name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature
   

2. Submit a pull request through the GitHub website.

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

1. The pull request should include tests.
2. If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated. Put your new functionality into a function with a docstring, and add the feature to the list in README.md.
3. The pull request should work for Python 3.12.

Tips

To run a subset of tests

uv run pytest tests/test_api/test_datasets.py -k <expr>

Additional Notes

• scripts/install_dev.sh installs backend development dependencies only.
• Frontend dependencies are installed separately from front/ with npm ci, or together with backend dependencies via just install from the repository root.