Contributing

First off, thank you for taking the time to contribute to the Stacks ecosystem ❤️

Note The likelihood is high that the repo you are working on is either a Stack or Stacks itself. In both cases, you will be exposed to a meshup of technologies, like Vue, Vite, Tauri, Nitro, and Bun.

💭 Knowledge

TypeScript

It's important to note early on that these projects are written with TypeScript. If you're unfamiliar with it (or any strongly typed languages such as Java) then this may feel like a slight roadblock. However, there's never a truly perfect time to start learning it, so ... why not today using well-written codebases as your playground?

Don't be discouraged. You will get by learning TypeScript on-the-fly as you review some of the examples within the codebase. It's easy to get started—the code is, we hope, very approachable (and readable).

Architecture

An understanding of the framework architecture and design will help if you're looking to contribute long-term, or if you are working on a "more complex" PR. Browse the source and read our documentation to get a better sense of how it is structured. The documentation is very thorough and can be used as your progressive guide as you're learning more about Stacks.

Feel free to ask any question (Twitter, Discord, or GitHub Discussions), we would love to elaborate & collaborate.

Stacks/Core Setup

Are you interested in contributing to the Stacks codebase?

Working on your first Pull Request? You can learn how from this free series How to Contribute to an Open Source Project on GitHub.

Head over to the repository on GitHub and click the Fork button in the top right corner. After the project has been forked, run the following commands in your terminal:

# Replace {github-username} with your GitHub username.
git clone https://github.com/{github-username}/stacks --depth=1

cd stacks

# Create a branch for your PR, replace {issue-no} with the GitHub issue number.
git checkout -b issue-{issue-no}

Now it'll help if we keep our main branch pointing at the original repository and make pull requests from the forked branch.

# Add the original repository as a "remote" called "upstream".
git remote add upstream git@github.com:stacksjs/stacks.git

# Fetch the git information from the remote.
git fetch upstream

# Set your local main branch to use the upstream main branch whenever you run `git pull`.
git branch --set-upstream-to=upstream/main main

# Run this when we want to update our version of main.
git pull

You may also use GitHub Desktop or any other GUI—if that is your preference.

Buddy Toolkit

The following list of commands is one of the most common ways to interact with the Stacks API. Meet Buddy:

buddy install # installs all dependencies
buddy dev # starts one of the dev servers (components, functions, views, desktop or docs)
buddy build # follow CLI prompts to select which library (or server) to build
buddy commit # follow CLI prompts for committing changes
buddy release # creates the releases of the stack & consequently, publishes them (to npm)
buddy upgrade # auto-update deps & the Stacks framework

buddy make:component HelloWorld # scaffolds a component
buddy make:function HelloWorld # scaffolds a function
buddy make:page hello-world # scaffolds a page (https://my-project.test/hello-world)

buddy help

View the complete Buddy Toolkit

buddy --help # view help menu
buddy install # installs your dependencies
buddy fresh # fresh reinstall of all deps
buddy update # auto-update deps & the Stacks framework

buddy --version # get the Stacks version
buddy --help # view help menu

# if you need any more info to any command listed here, you may suffix
# any of them via the "help option", i.e. `buddy command --help`

buddy dev # starts one of the dev servers (components, functions, views, or docs)
buddy dev:components # starts local playground dev server
buddy dev:desktop # starts the Desktop playground
buddy dev:views # starts local playground views dev server
buddy dev:functions # stubs local the functions
buddy dev:docs # starts local docs dev server

# for Laravel folks, `serve` may ring more familiar than the `dev` name. Hence, we aliased it:
buddy serve # starts one of the dev servers (components, functions, viewsviews, or docs)
buddy serve:components # starts local playground dev server
buddy serve:views # starts local playground views dev server
buddy serve:functions # stubs local the functions
buddy serve:docs # starts local docs dev server

# sets your application key
buddy key:generate

buddy make:stack project
buddy make:component HelloWorld
buddy make:function hello-world
buddy make:page hello-world
buddy make:lang de
buddy make:database cars
buddy make:table brands
buddy make:migration create_cars_table
buddy make:factory cars

buddy lint # runs linter
buddy lint:fix # runs linter and fixes issues

buddy commit # follow CLI prompts for committing staged changes
buddy release # creates the releases for the stack & triggers the Release Action (workflow)
buddy changelog # generates CHANGELOG.md

# building for production (e.g. npm, Vercel, Netlify, et al.)
buddy build # select a specific build (follow CLI prompts)
buddy build:components # builds Vue component library & Web Component library
buddy build:functions # builds function library
buddy build:vue-components # builds Vue 2 & 3-ready Component library
buddy build:web-components # builds framework agnostic Web Component library (i.e. Custom Elements)
buddy build:views # builds views

# when deploying your app/s
buddy deploy:docs
buddy deploy:functions
buddy deploy:views

# select the example to run (follow CLI prompts)
buddy example

# test your stack
buddy test # runs test suite (unit & e2e)
buddy test:coverage # runs test coverage
buddy test:types # runs typecheck

🧪 Testing

All the framework tests are stored within the ./.stacks/tests project folder. When adding or updating functionality, please ensure it is covered through our test suite. Ensure so by running buddy test.

When working on an individual Stack, tests are stored within the ./tests project folder & it is recommended to write tests (when useful). Bu

✍️ Commit

Stacks uses semantic commit messages to automate package releases. No worries, you may not be aware what this is or how it works—just let Buddy guide you. Stacks automated the commit process for you, simply run buddy commit in your terminal and follow the instructions.

For example,

# Add all changes to staging to be committed.
git add .

# Commit changes.
buddy commit

# Push changes up to GitHub.
git push

By following these minor steps, Stacks is able to automatically release new versions & generate relating local & remote changelogs.

🎉 Pull Request

When you're all done, head over to the repository, and click the big green Compare & Pull Request button that should appear after you've pushed changes to your fork.

Don't expect your PR to be accepted immediately or even accepted at all. Give the community time to vet it and see if it should be merged. Please don't be disheartened if it's not accepted. Your contribution is appreciated more than you can imagine, and even a unmerged PR can teach us a lot ❤️

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