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Introduction and Goals

What is the Contributor Guide?

First it’s important to note that we’re not just talking about code projects. OpenStack contributions come in different forms such as running meet ups, identifying use cases (Product Working Group), documentation, testing, etc. Our goal is to have these contributions valued equally.

The Contributor Guide aims to provide common documentation for all OpenStack Contributors and help with on-boarding efforts.

Having the common documentation worked on by various projects will better help prevent duplicated efforts, inconsistent documentation, and will also provide more accurate information. Projects that have zero/outdated documentation can also just use the Contributor Guide.

Where the Guide Is Used

At various OpenStack events, the Contributor Guide is used to help various on-boarding programs:

Project Specific Contributor Guides

Project teams should still have their own contributor documentation to cover things listed under Examples of Documentation that’s NOT Common. A couple examples of project team specific contributor guides are the Nova team’s and the Documentation team’s.

Adding/Updating Content

Before you modify or add new content first get familiar with OpenStack’s code/documentation practices. You can read the Code & Documentation Contributor Guide for getting started.

Once you’ve read through the guide, use git to clone the Contributor Guide repository:

git clone https://opendev.org/openstack/contributor-guide

Content Guidelines

  • No wall of text. The reader should feel like they can finish things on the page in five minutes, instead of having yet another forgotten tab that they’ll never get back to.

  • Use screen shots.

  • Avoid covering every issue that can be hit along the way. Case by case basis will be accepted depending on how common it is.

  • No videos please. They’re way too complicated to keep updated.

Common Content Only

As the Contributor Guide is meant to be general so everyone can use it, here are some helpful examples of what should be contributed. Examples of things that are not common should be in your project team’s specific documentation which will be listed in the Contributor Portal.

Examples of Common Documentation

  • Setting up Git.

  • Setting up IRC to communicate.

  • Setting up Mailing Lists to communicate.

  • Setting up appropriate accounts to contribute like Gerrit, Storyboard and Launchpad.

  • How to vote in elections.

Examples of Documentation that’s NOT Common

  • Some specific software tool only your project team uses.

  • Specific procedures for doing things like bug triage.

Examples of Good Documentation

Use chapters that have already been accepted to get a feel of what we’re looking for.

How Can I Start Helping?

Bug reports and tasks are all recorded in Storyboard. If something isn’t assigned, it’s available for you to take.

Get Help Contributing

We want you to succeed! You can ask for help on IRC OFTC in channel #openstack-doc. You can also ask for help on the OpenStack Discuss Mailing list prefixing your email subject with ‘[contributor-guide]’. If you’re not familiar with these ways of communicating, read the Code & Documentation Contributor Guide.