Pico aims to be a high quality Content Management System (CMS) but at the same time wants to give contributors freedom when submitting fixes or improvements.
As such we want to *encourage* but not obligate you, the contributor, to follow these guidelines. The only exception to this are the guidelines elucidated in the *Prevent `merge-hell`* section.
Having said that: we really appreciate it when you apply the guidelines in part or wholly as that will save us time which, in turn, we can spend on bugfixes and new features.
If you want to report an *issue* with Pico's core, please create a new [Issue](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/issues) on GitHub. Concerning problems with plugins or themes, please refer to the website of the developer of this plugin or theme.
Before creating a [new Issue on GitHub](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/issues/new), please make sure the problem wasn't reported yet using [GitHubs search engine](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/search?type=Issues).
Please describe your issue as clear as possible and always include the *Pico version* you're using. Provided that you're using *plugins*, include a list of them too. We need information about the *actual and expected behavior*, the *steps to reproduce* the problem, and what steps you have taken to resolve the problem by yourself (i.e. *your own troubleshooting*).
Once you decide you want to contribute to *Pico's core* (which we really appreciate!) you can fork the project from https://github.com/picocms/Pico. If you're interested in developing a *plugin* or *theme* for Pico, please refer to the [development section](http://picocms.org/development/) of our website.
Please do *not* develop your contribution on the `master` branch of your fork, but create a separate feature branch, that is based off the `master` branch, for each feature that you want to contribute.
> Not doing so means that if you decide to work on two separate features and place a pull request for one of them, that the changes of the other issue that you are working on is also submitted. Even if it is not completely finished.
To get more information about the usage of Git, please refer to the [Pro Git book](https://git-scm.com/book) written by Scott Chacon and/or [this help page of GitHub](https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests).
Please keep in mind that pull requests should be small (i.e. one feature per request), stick to existing coding conventions and documentation should be updated if required. It's encouraged to make commits of logical units and check for unnecessary whitespace before committing (try `git diff --check`). Please reference issue numbers in your commit messages where appropriate.
Pico uses the [PSR-2 Coding Standard](http://www.php-fig.org/psr/psr-2/) as defined by the [PHP Framework Interoperability Group (PHP-FIG)](http://www.php-fig.org/).
For historical reasons we don't use formal namespaces. Markdown files in the `content-sample` folder (the inline documentation) must follow a hard limit of 80 characters line length.
It is recommended to check your code using [PHP_CodeSniffer](https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer) using Pico's `.phpcs.xml` standard. Use the following command:
With this command you can specify a file or folder to limit which files it will check or omit that argument altogether, in which case the current working directory is checked.
Pico accepts the problems of having redundant documentation on different places (concretely Pico's inline user docs, the `README.md` and the website) for the sake of a better user experience. When updating the docs, please make sure to keep them in sync.
If you update the [`README.md`](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/blob/master/README.md) or [`content-sample/index.md`](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/blob/master/content-sample/index.md), please make sure to update the corresponding files in the [`_docs`](https://github.com/picocms/picocms.github.io/tree/master/_docs/) folder of the `picocms.github.io` repo (i.e. [Pico's website](http://picocms.org/docs/)) and vice versa. Unfortunately this involves three (!) different markdown parsers. If you're experiencing problems, use Pico's [`erusev/parsedown-extra`](https://github.com/erusev/parsedown-extra) as a reference. You can try to make the contents compatible to [Kramdown](http://kramdown.gettalong.org/) (Pico's website) and [Redcarpet](https://github.com/vmg/redcarpet) (`README.md`) by yourself, otherwise please address the issues in your pull request message and we'll take care of it.
The `master` branch contains the current development version of Pico. It is likely *unstable* and *not ready for production use*.
However, the `master` branch always consists of a deployable (but not necessarily deployed) version of Pico. As soon as development of a new `MAJOR` or `MINOR` release starts, a separate branch (e.g. `pico-1.1`) is created and a [pull request](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/pulls) is opened to receive the desired feedback.
As soon as development reaches a point where feedback is appreciated, a pull request is opened. After some time (very soon for bug fixes, and other improvements should have a reasonable feedback phase) the pull request is merged and the development branch will be deleted. Trivial bug fixes which will be part of the next `PATCH` version will be merged directly into `master`.
We're using [Travis CI](https://travis-ci.com) to automate the build & release process of Pico. It generates and deploys [phpDoc](http://phpdoc.org) class docs for new releases and on every commit to the `master` branch. Travis also prepares new releases by generating Pico's pre-built packages, a version badge and pushing both to our website (the [`picocms.github.io` repo](https://github.com/picocms/picocms.github.io)). Please refer to our [`.travis.yml`](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/blob/master/.travis.yml) and the [`_build` directory](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/tree/master/_build) for details.
As insinuated above, it is important that each commit to `master` is deployable. Once development of a new Pico release is finished, trigger Pico's build & release process by pushing a new Git tag. This tag should reference a (usually empty) commit on `master`, which message should adhere to the following template:
Travis CI will draft the new [release on GitHub](https://github.com/picocms/Pico/releases) automatically, but will require you to manually amend the descriptions formatting. The latest Pico version is always available at https://github.com/picocms/Pico/releases/latest, so please make sure to publish this URL rather than version-specific URLs. [Packagist](http://packagist.org/packages/picocms/pico) will be updated automatically.
Pico makes use of GitHub's label and milestone features, to aide developers in quickly identifying and prioritizing which issues need to be worked on. The starting point for labeling issues and pull requests is the `type` label, which is explained in greater detail below. The `type` label might get combined with a `pri` label, describing the issue's priority, and a `status` label, describing the current status of the issue.
Issues and pull requests labeled with `info: Feedback Needed` indicate that feedback from others is highly appreciated. We always appreciate feedback at any time and from anyone, but when this label is present, we explicitly *ask* you to give feedback. It would be great if you leave a comment!
- The `type: Bug` label is assigned to issues or pull requests, which have been identified as bugs or security issues in Pico's core. It might get combined with the `pri: High` label, when the problem was identified as security issue, or as a so-called "show stopper" bug. In contrast, uncritical problems might get labeled with `pri: Low`. `type: Bug` issues and pull requests are usually labeled with one of the following `status` labels when being closed:
-`status: Resolved` is used when the issue has been resolved.
-`status: Conflict` indicates a conflict with another issue.
-`status: Won't Fix` means, that the problem was identified as intended behavior.
-`status: Rejected` is used when the issue was rejected for another reason (e.g. when the issue wasn't reproducible).
- The `type: Enhancement` and `type: Feature` labels are used to tag pull requests, which introduce either a comparatively small enhancement, or a "big" new feature. As with the `type: Bug` label, they might get combined with the `pri: High` or `pri: Low` labels to indicate the pull request's priority. A pull request isn't necessarily mergeable when being opened, so it might get labeled with `status: Pending Merge` when development of the pull request is finished, but merging isn't intended yet. After merging or closing the pull request, it is labeled with one of the `status` labels as described above for the `type: Bug` label.
- The `type: Idea` label is similar to the `type: Enhancement` and `type: Feature` labels, but is used for issues or incomplete and abandoned pull requests. It is otherwise used in the exact same way as `type: Enhancement` and `type: Feature`.
- The `type: Release` label is used in the exact same way as `type: Feature` and indicates the primary pull request of a new Pico release (please refer to the *Branching* and *Build & Release process* sections above).
- The `type: Notice`, `type: Question` and `type: Discussion` labels are used to indicate "fyi" issues, issues opened by users or developers asking questions, and issues with disucssions about arbitrary topics related to Pico. They are neither combined with `pri` labels, nor with `status` labels.
- The `type: Duplicate` label is used when there is already another issue or pull request related to this problem or feature request. Issues labeled with `type: Duplicate` are immediately closed.
- The `type: Invalid` label is used for everything else, e.g. issues or pull requests not related to Pico, or invalid bug reports.
The `status: Deferred` label might get added to any open issue or pull request to indicate that it still open and will be resolved later.
Issues and pull requests, which are rather related to upstream projects (i.e. projects Pico depends on, like Twig), are additionally labeled with `info: Upstream`.
When a issue or pull request isn't directly related to Pico's core, but the project as a whole, it is labeled with `info: Meta`. The same applies to the `info: Website` label, however, in this case it is usually expedient to move the issue to the [`picocms.github.io` repo](https://github.com/picocms/picocms.github.io) containing Pico's website.
